The Chimera Killer
by jabberwockyandthevorpalblade
Summary: When a serial killer that bases its killing off Greek mythology targets the people of Las Vegas, Grissom and the team must piece together the clues left for them to follow—and catch a killer before it strikes again.
1. Chapter 1

Okay, this is my first crime fic. I'm going to try my best to make it sound professional with the help of books and the internet. I just love watching crimes shows so I decided to take a shot.

This takes place before any of the characters leave/die.

**Disclaimer:** I, sadly, do not own CSI. I wish I did….

* * *

The girl got out of the car as quickly as she could. She tried to run up the walkway to the house before her mother got out of the car.

"Wait," her mother called. "I'm walking you to the door."

The girl turned around, exasperated. "_Mom_! You don't have to do that. I am fourteen-years-old. You don't have to walk up the _driveway_." She rolled her eyes.

Her mother crossed her arms as she made her way toward her child. "Well, maybe I want to look like a responsible parent, not one that just drops her kid off."

A groan came out of the girl.

They rang the doorbell, waiting on the doorstep patiently. No one answered. Minutes later, they tried again. The girl could feel herself getting irritated. She wanted to see her friend, so she pushed on the door. They family would not care if she walked in, especially if they were at a place where they could not hear the doorbell. Surprisingly, the door swung open at her touch.

"Hello, we're here!"

No answer.

The mother looked down the hallway curiously. Maybe it was just intuition, but something did not feel right. Both mother and daughter turned right down the hall and into the living room. Immediately a hand pressed against the daughter's eyes, shielding her from the gruesome sight.

"Oh, my…" the mother slid her hand away from her daughter and pushed her back into the hall. "Call 911," she said. "But whatever you do, don't come back into this room."

A woman lay sprawled across the floor, lying in a pile of blood. Her clothing was soaked, her lifeless eyes open. Another body was curled up on the other side of the coffee table—the dead woman's daughter. Unlike the first, she was not coved in blood, only splattered. Running over to her, the mother grabbed the girl and pressed her hand against her neck.

There was still my pulse.

"Honey," she called out to her own daughter, whose voice drifted down to her. "Tell them that she is still alive!"

***

Bright lights flashed around the house even though it was only the afternoon. Intense yellow crime scene tape was blocking off the house from the public. Police officers were taking to each other, pointing at the house.

"The most terrible thing is that this neighborhood looks completely normal. You would never suspect that a murder could take place here," Catherine Willows said as she and Gil Grissom crossed under the tape. "It makes you think about if your own home is safe."

Standing in front of the home was Sara Sidle. She jogged over to the two when she saw them.

"What do we have?" asked Catherine.

"Roxanne Theseus, age forty-one, murdered, and her daughter, Zoë Theseus, sent to the hospital. She was out cold and the medics said that she might have a broken arm, but besides that, she is fine—a few cuts, but nothing that looks like it was meant to kill. I'm guessing that it was defensive wounds, but I never saw her." Sara flipped through the papers on her clipboard as she relayed the information she had gathered.

"Who called it in?"

Sara pointed over at the cop cars. A distraught woman was talking to one of the officers while tightly hugging a girl who Grissom guessed was her own daughter. "She was dropping her daughter off when they found the body. The girl is a friend of Zoë's."

They made their way inside the home and into the living room. Grissom bent down to stare at the cadaver. She was covered in blood. He swabbed it and put it into a container; they would have to check that they blood was Roxanne's and that there was more than one person's blood. If they were lucky, the killer might have shed some too.

"Stab wounds," said Grissom, looking up at the women. "Sara, go to the hospital and collect Zoë's clothing. Also, if you can, check her condition, but don't press it—she has only been hospitalized for a few hours."

He watched her walk away, and then started to search the room. "Do you see the murder weapon, Catherine?"

"He could have taken it with him," she said as she examined the table that the deceased was lying next to. "Not all killers leave their weapon behind, though it would make our job a lot easier if they did."

Grissom studied the stab wounds the best he could without touching the body. "You assume that the killer is a male, though we have no evidence at the moment that proves this."

Catherine stopped and turned to the man. "Grissom, most murderers that we face are male, but you are right, it could be either a man or a woman killer. It is our job to find out which." She went back to examining the table. "Hey, look at this." She pointed to a gash that was at the end of the table, right before the corner. It was neither long nor deep, but it was obvious that it had been made recently. A spot of blood was on the edge. Catherine swabbed it and said, holding the Q-tip in front of her face, "It looks like Roxanne put up a fight."

There was only one more gash on the entire table, this one larger and deeper than the first. It was in a semi-circle shape; pieces of wood stuck out around it.

"This was not just a chip taken out of the table—it appears to be a knife impression." Grissom ran a gloved finger over the slash.

"Do you think we could get an imprint from it?"

Grissom shook his head. "No, the sides of the wood have been bended. It looks like the killer pierced the table so that it would hold the knife, or whatever type of blade the weapon was. Then our killer grabbed the hilt and twisted it from side to side until it came out, creating this shape." He grabbed an imaginary knife and twisted it while he talked.

Catherine crossed her arms thoughtfully. "But did he do this before or after he killed Roxanne?" She started to swab the gash as well. "And did he stab Zoë too, or was it only her mother that was stabbed? If that is true, then why?"

"Sara said that the medics on the scene reported that the girl had physical wounds besides a few cuts. If those cuts were serious and caused by a knife than they would have stated so." Grissom went back to searching the room.

"I'm going to go check the door for fingerprints," Catherine called as she walked out of the room.

_This_, Grissom thought as he returned to the body, _is a shoe print._ It was vague, but on Roxanne's hip was the dirt line of a shoe print. _There is no blood on her hip since she is lying on her right side and lower back. The murderer made sure that no blood transferred to their boots. However, why would the killer do that? If they were smart enough not to touch the blood then they should have realized that their shoe print would show up when they stepped on Roxanne…. Mistakes like these are what get murderers caught_.

"Hey Grissom, I found blood in the kitchen." Catherine was standing in the doorway, holding a knife in her hand. "And I found this in the dishwasher. Our killer thought that he wiped all of the blood away from the floor, but he missed a few spots, and it was enough for me to find this."

"Do you think it is our murder weapon?"

"Well, it is covered it blood, was the only thing in the dishwasher, and there was blood on the inside of the washer door. I think so, but we will not know for sure until we get back to the lab."

They stood in silence for a moment, taking in what they had learned.

"Catherine, come see this," said Grissom, still squatting. He pointed to a statue that was on the coffee table. It stood six inches tall, including the base. It was the head and forelegs of a lion, gazing with its head turned to the side, a mane framing its face while it was mid roar. However, it was only part of a statue. Right behind the shoulders, the body cut off, as well as at the base. An extension of the body came out, but it was smaller than the original body. This part, Grissom realized, was supposed to be connected to another part of the statue, with the extension sliding under the second part.

"There is no blood spatter on this," he continued, "but there is all around it on the table." He swabbed it and sprayed the swab. It showed negative for blood.

"Maybe the killer sterilized it?" offered Catherine. "But I do not see why he would go all that trouble for one statue, and not the entire place."

"Or," said Grissom as he lifted up the statue, reveling blood on the table underneath, "maybe the killer left it here for us to find."

_To be continued…_

* * *

Oh, this is getting exciting. *laughs*

Please review—let me know if you hate it or love it or do not care at all. I just want to know! I love getting reviews. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :}

R&R


	2. Chapter 2

Here is chapter two.

**Disclaimer:** I have nothing to do with this TV show except for the fact that I am writing a story about it. :}

* * *

Sara Sidle walked through the hospital at a brisk pace. Thankfully, the doctor was standing outside of Zoë's room, flipping through his clipboard and scribbling on a sheet of paper. Sara grabbed him before he could walk away.

"How is she?" That was the most important question.

The doctor smiled wearily, as if he had had a long night. "Yes, yes, she is fine—physically at least. There are some cuts on her arms but they were nothing more than scrapes, though one on the back of her arm needed a few stitches. It might have been grazed by a knife; it is not serious."

_A defensive wound_, thought Sara. _She probably put her arms up to block her face and the attacker only lightly touched her_.

"There is a good size lump on the back of her head from hitting the floor, but it is just a minor concussion. Thankfully, there were no other signs of assault," finished the doctor.

Sara nodded. "Can I have Zoë's clothing to bring back to the lab?"

The doctor returned the nod. "Of course. I will have a nurse retrieve them for you."

After getting the man's approval, Sara went into the hospital room to talk to Zoë, who was now conscious. However, when she opened the door, all she saw was an empty, but messy bed. The TV, which hooked onto the wall high above her head, was still on, softly playing the results of baseball games. The remote was sitting on the bed, right where someone's hand would be, ready to change the station if necessary.

"Zoë?" called Sara.

Seconds later the sound of a flushing toilet reached Sara's ears and the adjoined bathroom door opened to revel the girl she had been looking for.

"I just had to use the bathroom," said Zoë as she fixed her hospital gown. "You don't have to get worried that I was abducted or ran away." She rolled her eyes as she plopped back onto the bed. "So, who are you?"

Sara raised an eyebrow at the girl. She seemed completely calm even though she was being what Sara considered rude. "Hello, I'm Sara Sidle and I am with the Las Vegas Crime Lab."

Zoë's eyes glazed over for a second before she spoke again. "Look, can't I just go home? I hate hospitals. I hate talking to people I don't know, answering there weird questions. I want to see someone I know. I want my mom." Her face hardened as she spoke.

_Oh, no_, Sara thought. _She does not know about her mother_…

"Zoë, there is something that I have to tell you," Sara did not want to be the one who had to tell this girl that her mother was gone. She _never_ wanted to be the one to tell someone that his or her loved one was gone….

"She isn't alive." Zoë stared at her bare feet. "I know. I was there when she was stabbed. I saw it all—or at least until I was knocked out. There was so much blood," whispered Zoë, whether in disgust or fright Sara could not tell. "It splattered onto me… I wanted to run to her… but I never made it there." She brought her hand to the back of her head where she had landed. The girl's voice came out in short gasps. "Yeah, I know she's… gone."

She could not bring herself to say the word _dead_.

Zoë jumped up from the bed and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Sara could hear her retch and then her choked sobs. All she could do was wait until Zoë came back out.

Fifteen minutes later she did.

"Sorry," the teenager muttered as she wiped her eyes with her arm.

"It is okay," said Sara softly. "It really is…. But do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"No."

From her bag, Sara pulled out a piece of paper in case she had to write something down. "Do you know who it was that attacked you?"

Zoë crossed her legs over one another and pulled the blanket up into her arms. "No, I couldn't see his face—he was wearing a ski mask, but I know that it was a man from the stature."

"Can you remember how tall he was? Did you see any features or hair color?"

Shaking her head, the girl replied, "No, I couldn't see his hair, but he did get close to me when he pushed me. I might have—"

"He pushed you?" Sara interrupted.

"That's how I fell and hit my head on the floor," sighed Zoë. She tapped the back of her head again. "Like I was saying, I should have seen the color of his eyes when he got close, but I… I just cannot remember. It happened too quickly." She rubbed her temples slowly. "He saw about average height, I guess, maybe 5' 8''."

"Is there anything else you remember about the man?" asked Sara. "Maybe his voice or something strange about him?"

"No." Zoë glared at the wall, as if it was what had caused all of her pain. "He might have talked—I can't even remember his voice. He seemed _average_! There was nothing about him that stood out." Her voice was rising with each word she spoke, until she finally stopped talking altogether. "I want to go home," she said after a minute of silence.

Sara bit her lip. It was still hard to tell a fourteen-year-old that she could not go home, no many how many times she had to say it. "I'm sorry, but your home is evidence now; you can't go home, Zoë…. Your father must have been contacted about this."

"My father doesn't care." She sounded defeated. "He lives in New York and I have not seen him since I was two-years-old. The only family I have are my grandparents."

_I hope that they are able to take this girl_, Sara thought. _That would be the best thing for her, I believe._ "Thank you, for telling me these things; it must be very hard…. Hopefully we won't have to talk like this again."

Zoë just stared at her.

On her way out, Sara collected the girl's clothing. It was time to get back to the lab.

***

"There she is," Jim Brass said pointing toward the car. "She's all yours."

Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown walked under the crime scene tape and to the smashed car. The body was still in the driver's seat. The woman was young, barely in her twenties by the look of it. Her head was slumped up against the cracked window shield.

"Nice car," Nick said, as he looked it over. "And from the looks of it, it is new too. However, it's totaled now. A waste of a good corvette."

"So far she is a Jane Doe," Warrick said as he peered into the car. "Hey, Nick come here." He motioned for him to look inside the car. "See anything strange?"

"It's more like what I don't see," Nick said. "There's no blood. With the impact, there would be blood everywhere. Are you thinking that she was already dead when she hit the tree?"

"Yeah, that's what I think. The crash had to happen post mortem."

"Then how does a dead woman drive a car into a tree?" Nick started to walk around the car, hoping to find some type of clue.

"I think that your answer is in here," Warrick called. On the driver petal was a brick.

"So, our killer placed our Jane Doe in here after she was dead and then put the brick on the petal so it would look an accident. But we would have found the brick anyways, unless they were hoping that the car would catch on fire."

Warrick pushed his hair back thoughtfully. "Maybe that means our killer doesn't know what they are doing."

"If that is true," said Nick, "then, hopefully, it will make our jobs a lot easier."

_To be continued…_

* * *

Yes! Another chapter done! I hope that there will be a few cases going on at once. :}

Please tell me what you thought.

R&R


	3. Chapter 3

Here is chapter three.

**Disclaimer:** I only watch CSI. :}

* * *

"I think that it is pretty obvious on how this woman died, but I still need a job, so I will tell you anyway," said Doc as he hovered over Roxanne's body. "Multiple stab wounds to the chest and stomach. She lost a lot of blood from the looks of these stabs—there are eight of them, by the way. She has deep cuts on her arms from putting them up to block herself, though it did not help much."

Grissom leaned against the table. "What I wonder about is this: why was Roxanne stabbed multiple times, but her daughter was only nicked by the knife?"

"Maybe the killer thought that she was dead when she hit the floor," Doc suggested.

"Or, maybe, the killer couldn't bring himself to do it."

Doc walked over to one of the sinks and started to wash his hands. "I do not know, Grissom, but I'm only too glad that I only had the mother's body and not the daughter's body too."

As he walked through the door, Grissom said, "And her body is still one too many."

***

"Leo Harwood," said Sofia Curtis. The interrogation room was small, but by now, she was use to it. She had no need to be afraid—she was not the one that did anything wrong. "Your girlfriend was found in her car, dead." Their Jane Doe had a name now: Regina Chapman.

"I _know_ that already." Harwood was antsy. He was drumming his hands against the table and his eyes never stayed in one place for long. Sofia looked the man over. His features were long, giving him the appearance of someone who was sad all the time. His eyes were large pools sitting on his face, but his glasses were too small, and his dark hair needed a haircut. Harwood was a long and lanky man, which surprised Sofia. From the photographs that she had seen, Regina was a beautiful, well-dressed woman. Her boyfriend was the exact opposite.

"When was the last time that you saw Regina?" asked Sofia after a long silence.

"It was—it was two days ago," stuttered Harwood. "We went out to a restaurant…. How did she die?"

_It was a good thing that the autopsy was done before we brought him in_, Sofia thought. "She died from asphyxiation."

"What? I thought that she was in a car crash!" Harwood threw his hands up to his face. "What does that even mean?"

Sofia crossed her arms and stared at the man, letting the room fill with silence. "It means that she suffocated." What Sofia did not ad was that Regina wasn't choked by a person. She died from her throat swelling and cutting off the air to her lungs.

"She was suffocated in her car? Did that cause her to crash?" Harwood looked horrified.

"No, she was put in the car after her death, post mortem. Now," Sofia said sharply, "tell us about Regina. Did she have any enemies, anyone whom she had a falling out with?"

Harwood shook his head so hard that Sofia wondered if it hurt his neck or not. "No, everyone loved Regina…. However, the other night she had a falling out with her best friend. I have no idea what it was about, since it seemed like one of the problems women have, and I did not want to get involved—"

"What is her friend's name?" asked Sofia, cutting him off.

"Bethany LeClaire," chattered Harwood. "May I go? I needed to call her parents. I haven't done anything wrong."

He was right. They could not hold him here. "Yes, you may leave." Sofia left the interrogation room soon after Harwood. She pulled out her cell phone. "I need to have Bethany LeClaire here," she said into it. "Now."

***

"Man, this woman sure knew how to keep a clean house," said Nick as he picked a hair off the white couch with his tweezers. "This is the only hair I have found on this entire piece of furniture." Like the couch, most of the room was white: the chair in the corner, the square rug draped over the hardwood floor, the lamps that were on the dark stained end tables.

"Actually, she had a maid." Warrick searched the TV station. "Did you really think that a twenty-six-year-old could keep a house this tidy? I know that my house never looked like this when I was that age."

"Yeah, mine either, but that's what happens with kids who have rich parents—their very own home and a maid that comes with it." Nick leaned back away from the couch.

"So what exactly are we looking for?" Warrick asked.

Nick started to make his way to the kitchen. "Well, Regina was killed somewhere else besides her car. We're just trying to find something out of the ordinary here. Results from the lab told us that there were chips of maple wood on her clothing, suggesting that she was sitting down on a wooden chair when she died."

Warrick nodded. "If she thrashed while her throat was closing up, then that would cause chips of it to transfer to her clothing."

The kitchen was extremely large, much larger than any twenty-year-old would care for. The countertops were marble, the appliances stainless steel, and the table and chairs were wooded. Half of the kitchen had tile floor, but the other half, the part with the dining table, had a wooden floor, like the rest of the house. Underneath one of the chairs was a gash in the floor.

"I don't think that the maid caused that," Warrick commented.

A scene started to form in Nick's head. He pictured Regina sitting at the table. Then she started to shake, and then she grabbed her throat. She was convulsing and choking. Finally, Regina was thrown across the floor by her own shaking, and the chair was flung out from under her. The bottom of the leg of the chair scraped against the wood floor. The vision disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Nick relayed his idea to on Warrick.

"But what was she doing at the table?" he asked.

Nick shrugged. "Eating? We should ask Doc what was in Regina's stomach when we get back. I hope that that will be important. Otherwise we have no other leads."

"You really think that this is where Regina died?" Warrick did not say it cruelly—he was only curious. "If she did, then was someone with her? Or did they come later and find her dead on the floor? Was it an accident or was it really murder?"

"Either way, someone has to go to jail for moving a dead body and making it look like a car accident. Did she die here? I do not know, but I think that it is a possibility."

They proceeded to taking samples of the wood chairs. While they were walking out of the house, Warrick turned to Nick and said, "Remember when I said she had a maid?"

"Yeah."

"I think that we should ask her some questions."

***

Grissom's eyes were starting to hurt from staring at the computer screen for so long. After hours of searching, he finally had it.

"What's that?" Catherine asked as she walked through the office door.

"This," said Grissom, "is the statue that was left at our crime scene. It comes apart into three pieces. They each fit into each other perfectly and the inside is hollowed out."

"Yes, I can see that," Catherine commented. She gazed at the screen. "But they look like three different animals."

Grissom nodded. "That's true, Catherine. However, they are in fact one creature." He flipped to another screen, which showed all of the pieces together. "It is from Greek mythology. This is a monster called the Chimera. It has a lion's head, a goat's body, and the tail of a dragon or a serpent, whichever way you look at it. The Chimera breathes fire. Bellerophon was the hero that killed the creature in the myths. He also happened to tame Pegasus, which was a winged horse. Did you know that the word _chimera_ means an imaginary monster made out of different grotesque combinations of animals? It also means something unrealistic or an organism with different tissues or DNA from different sources."

"So the Chimera really left its mark on history," Catherine commented. "It really is not lovely to look at. Why would anyone want to have of statue of that?"

"Oh, you would be surprised how popular this statue is. From what I have read, professors on the Greeks or Greek mythology love this for paperweights. Then there are people who just love the Greeks. I must say, their stories are very intriguing; however, I do not know as much on the subject as I hoped I would. "Grissom stared at the creature on the screen. "It _is_ a strange combination. I wonder how they came up with it, the Greeks that is."

Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How do you know that the Chimera really did not exist?"

"There is nothing that supports that theory," said Grissom. "It is scientifically impossible."

Turning her attention back to the statue, Catherine said, "Where is the rest of the statue?"

"That I do not know," Grissom said as he slipped his glasses back on. "Either it was in the house before the killing and the murderer moved it…"

"Or?"

"Or the killer has two more pieces, and two more murders to leave them at."

_To be continued…_

* * *

I love Greek mythology. I really want a Chimera statue, but I do not know if there are any really ones or not.

I would love to hear what you thought of this chapter!

R&R


	4. Chapter 4

Here is chapter four.

**Disclaimer:** The only connection I have with CSI is when I am sitting in front of the TV, watching marathons of it. :}

* * *

The woman pressed a wad of tissue paper to her nose. "I can't believe that she is dead!" She blew her nose loudly, and then apologized. "I just can't get over it…"

"I was told that you and Regina had a falling out a few days ago," said Sofia. "Can you tell me about that?"

Across the table, the woman, Bethany LeClaire, looked up, startled. "You think that I killed Regina! I would never do that! She is… was… my best friend." Her black mascara was running down her cheeks from crying and was starting to mix in with her curly red hair.

"We have never accused you of killing Regina," Sofia said calmly. "I just want to know about your fight. When was it?"

Bethany pulled the tissues away from her face and started to fold them into squares. "It was two days ago at her house."

_Regina has been dead at least two days, according to the autopsy report_, thought Sofia. _Harwood said that he had dinner with her so, if he is not lying, than she died later that night_.

"Well, actually, first we went out to lunch," Bethany added.

"Where?"

"It was a café outside of the city," she said as she wrote down the address. "It is a nice place, but there is not much Regina can eat there. She always lets us go there, since she knew how much that I liked it."

This caught Sofia's attention. "Why could she not eat there?"

"Leo didn't tell you?" Bethany seemed surprised. "Regina is deathly allergic to seafood."

_That would explain her asphyxiation. If she unknowingly ate seafood, it would cause her death_.

"All right, continue," commanded Sofia.

Bethany started to unfold the tissues. "Then, later we went back to Regina's house and we started arguing. I told her about a job interview that I had gotten down at a big name magazine company. Then she told me that she had gone to the same place weeks earlier—and that she had gotten the job. I was so mad at her for not telling me before! I thought that I did so well on that interview and then she had to go and ruin it. I never would have gone if Regina had told me that she put in an application. We just started arguing about it, and Regina told me how it was not her fault for not telling me, since she thought that her work life was none of my business. I never would have guessed that the last thing I would ever tell her was that she was a… well you understand." Her green eyes started to water again.

Sofia set her arms on the cool table. "And did you get so mad that you poisoned her? You could not take it that Regina got everything that she wanted, and now she took something that you wanted. You snapped."

Her eyes grew wide. "No! I could never kill her. I might have hated her that day, but I would never do that!" Bethany's hair fell around her face and she pulled it back hastily. Sofia watched as strands of hair floated down to the ground.

"Thank you." Sofia got up from her chair. "That is all—for now."

***

Zoë sat in the chair across from Catherine. Her grandmother was waiting in the room down the hall. Zoë had sent her away, telling her that this was something that she should not have to hear, even if was her daughter that was being discussed. This was the first time Catherine had seen the girl. She was wearing a black t-shirt, dark jeans, and sneakers. Her belt and bracelet was studded. Catherine would never let her own daughter, Lindsey, dress like that. Despite the fact that her outfit was beyond Catherine's taste she thought that the girl had a nice face. Her blonde hair was slightly frizzy and she had large, black, square glasses.

However, she eyes were dead from sorrow.

"When we tested the blood that was on your clothes from the day of the attack," she said, showing Zoë a picture of her clothing, as if they were another person's clothing. "The blood was not yours, nor your attacker. All of the blood was Roxanne's, your mother."

Zoë stared at the picture, her face blank. "I tried to help her. I ran up to her, but before I got there, he rushed up to me and pushed me. I could not help her…."

She started to stare at the paper with so much hate that Catherine wondered if she would answer any more questions. "We found something at your home that we would like to ask you about." Catherine took back the photograph of the clothes and traded it for two other pictures. One was of the first part of the statue and the other was of the entire thing, which they had printed from off the internet. "Have you ever seen this statue before and if you have, was it in pieces or was it whole?"

"No, I've never seen that statue before" Zoë said slowly.

Catherine had been hoping that the answer was different.

"The Chimera," Zoë alleged. "That's what it is, right?"

"How did you know?" Catherine seemed surprised. She had not known what it was, but the girl had. "You said that you have never seen it before."

A small smile came across her face, as if it let her forget her misfortune for a moment. "I love Greek mythology. When we learned about it at school, I thought it was awesome. I've taken time to learn as much as I could about it. The Chimera is a great creature. So far I have found so many references to it in books and literature."

_Well that is interesting_, thought Catherine. _Did our killer know that and sent it as a message_?

"This means that there might be things in your home that were not there originally," Catherine said. "We would like you to look around your house to see if Roxanne's killer left anything else behind. You may refuse, but we think that it will help us in our investigation."

"Did he leave these things for you to find?" Zoë looked confused at the thought. "Why?"

Catherine took a deep breath before saying, "We think that there might be other murders—if they are committed yet or not we do not know."

"So, you want me to try to find something out of place," said Zoë slowly. "Are these other 'clues' from Greek mythology, too?"

"We have no idea."

The girl bit her lip, not saying anything for five minutes. "Okay, I'll do it."

---

The house was dark when Catherine, Sara, and Zoë walked in. Catherine had made sure that they were all wearing rubber gloves, just in case they touched something. Zoë did not look at the bloodstain that covered the rug. Her grandmother had not wanted her to come, but the girl insisted. _Maybe_, she had said,_ this will give me closer_.

She gazed through the shelves of the movie case and then the furniture. Zoë ran her hand over the couch as she walked by. "I was standing here when it happened. I heard screaming coming from here when I was in the other room," she muttered to herself so quietly that Catherine could barely hear. "So I ran into the living room, and that's when I saw my mom getting stabbed. That was when the blood hit me—it was her blood. Then I tried to run to her, to help her, but he was quicker. Next thing I know, I'm falling, and then… everything went black when I hit the floor."

This was exactly what Zoë had told them earlier when they asked exactly what had happened, from the point she realized that there was an intruder in the house to when she had been knocked to the floor. It was, in Catherine's opinion, horrible to put her through all of this, but it had to be done. And this, the searching of the home, was something that Zoë had agreed to.

Suddenly, Zoë stopped moving. Slowly, she moved toward the bookcase. On the top shelf was a flower and around the flower was a small piece of paper.

"That wasn't here." Zoë said it as if it pained her. "That was never here. I know it."

Sara took a picture of the flower and paper and then took them down. She unrolled the paper. "_An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth_. What do you think that means if the murderer left it?" Sara asked. She showed them the paper.

"That is a narcissus flower," Catherine commented.

Zoë gazed at the objects as if they held all of the answers to the world. "You said that the statue really was a Chimera from Greek mythology, right?" she asked. "Well, I think that your Chimera Killer struck again."

_To be continued…_

* * *

There was a lot of talking and interrogating in this chapter, but it had to be done. I love having other cases going on at the same time the Chimera Killer case is.*sigh*

I absolutely love reviews. Predict what you think is going to happen, guess who the killer is, or just tell me what you thought! I _love_ knowing what you thought! :}

R&R


	5. Chapter 5

Here is chapter five.

**Disclaimer:** CSI own don't I.

* * *

Catherine stood still, her face grim. Zoë was standing in front of her. When she had offered to move to another room, she had refused. Standing there was something that she was all right with.

"What do you mean by that? You think that there are other crimes?" Catherine's head was spinning. This was the last thing that they had hoped for—another dead body to find.

"Catherine, you said that there could be other things that the killer left if the statue was not mine," confirmed Zoë "And I think that they are clues."

Catherine looked at Sara. She shrugged and told the girl to explain her thoughts.

Zoë nodded. "The Chimera Killer definitely left those there for us to follow."

"The Chimera Killer." The words ran over her tongue like water on rocks. "Serial killers get names like those. So far he has not killed others." _I hope_, Catherine added silently. _There are still two more pieces of the Chimera to find_.

"So, what are these clues?" Catherine asked as she peered at the objects on the table.

Turing toward the objects, Zoë said, "I was thinking that since the Chimera is from Greek mythology, then maybe these are too. I tried to think of anything that relates to the flower and the quote from mythology."

Sara started to put the things into sealed bags. "I am guessing that there are connections."

First was the flower. Its white petals were starting to wilt, but they could not put it in water. It was, after all, evidence. "A narcissus flower." Zoë stared at it with her dark eyes. "I was thinking that if the statue was from Greek mythology, then maybe theses were too…. The story of Narcissus and Echo: Echo was a nymph that loved to talk—a little too much. One day it got on Hera's, queen of the gods, never when they were having a conversation. Hera cursed her so that she could only repeat what other people said, nothing more, and nothing less. Sometime later, she saw a man at a pool of water through the trees, Narcissus. Immediately, she fell in love with him. However, Echo knew that she could never tell him that. Meanwhile, Narcissus leaned over the water and, for the first time in his life, saw himself. He did not know that it was he, though. Narcissus fell in love with himself. For days on end, he would sit there, telling his reflection that he loved him—in the end, he never did leave. Whenever Narcissus said that, Echo could finally tell the man how she felt. Eventually, Narcissus died and a flower came up in his place. Echo faded away until all that was left was her voice, repeating whatever she heard."

Now it was Catherine's turn to nod. "That is how we get a narcissus flower, a narcissistic person, and a person's echo." The Greeks really _had_ made their mark on history. "What about the paper? _An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth_. The Bible?"

"No… the Graeae, the Gray Sisters. I think that their names are Anger, Wasp, and Tempest, but there are many versions of their names. Anyways, they are sisters that share one eye and one tooth between them. They swap the eye and tooth. Most people confuse them with the Fates, since there are also three of them, too… and because in the movie "Hercules" Disney combined them." She smiled slightly. "Hercules is not even Geek—he's the Roman equivalent. _Heracles_ is Greek." Zoë seemed to catch herself. "Though, that isn't the point."

"So, we are looking for something with one eye or tooth, and is in love with their self?" asked Sara. "That should be easy… but killers never make it easy, do they?"

_It will not be that easy_, thought Catherine. _Obvious, it will not be_.

"But," Zoë said suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen over them. "I could be wrong…. It could have been blown out of proportion." She seemed to be reassuring herself, as if it would come true if she said it aloud. Catherine noticed that she still did not look at the bloodstain that seemed to haunt the floor.

"What do we do?" asked Zoë quietly.

"You do not do anything," Sara answered. "This is our job, not yours."

Zoë closed her eyes and sighed. Her voice came out strained. "Okay, just tell me when you find something."

"Of course."

***

Once again, Grissom was plastered in front of his computer. His eyes were starting to hurt, but that did not matter. There were other important things.

"How goes it?" Catherine asked from the doorway. "Did you find something?"

"Not at all, Cathy." Grissom took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Did you know that a person blinks less when in front of the television or computer screen? That is why your eyes are sore afterwards. Less blinks mean less moisture on the eyes."

Catherine shook her head, a faint smile on her lips. "That's great, Grissom, but it has nothing to do with the Chimera Killer case."

"The Chimera Killer?"

"Zoë named him," Catherine chortled, even though it was a serious subject. "I thought that it was fitting…. There is nothing you have found on the clues left at the scene?"

_Not yet, anyway_, Grissom thought. "The facts say nothing about Gray Sisters or narcissi in the Las Vegas area or anywhere near here. The facts are hidden and I just have to find them. However, it is harder than it sounds."

"It is always harder than it sounds, Grissom," Catherine said.

"I know. It is our job to catch these people, but sometimes they are able to sneak away from us." Grissom turned away, his back facing the screen.

"We will get him, don't worry," said Catherine. "We always find what the killer left behind. You will understand the Chimera Killer's clues."

"You hold me in high regards."

"I have a reason too."

Just then, Sara came in through the door, a pile of papers in her hands. "Good news—the knife that Catherine found in the washing machine was used to kill Roxanne Theseus. I'm going over to see if the blood on the knife had any traces of the killer's blood." She turned out and started down the hall, toward the DNA section.

"Well, now we have something to work off of," Catherine said. "One step closer." And with that, she too left.

_One step closer, and the killer takes two more forward_, thought Grissom as he turned back to the computer screen.

***

Greg drummed his hands on the lab tables over and over again, tapping to a beat that was unknown to Sara. He then started to slam his feet on the ground, creating more noise.

"Greg," Sara called.

He kept on drumming, drowning out the sound of her voice.

"Greg!" Sara grabbed him shoulder.

"Ah!" he called and spun around. "Oh, jeez Sara, you scared me half to death."

She smiled. "At least it wasn't Grissom that found you doing… that. Anyways, I'm here for the DNA analysis on the blood that was on the knife from the Theseus case."

Greg wheeled his chair over to a piece of paper that was sticking out of one of the countless machines. "Yeah, it just came in about five minutes ago." His eyes passed over the data that was written out on the sheet. "All of the blood belonged to Roxanne Theseus. Sorry, but the killer did not even nick the blade. And, before you ask, I checked the handle of the blade, too. There were no fingerprints—the killer wore gloves—but I did notice a pattern of the materials. I have found a match, but they are from very common gloves—anyone could own a pair. I even own pair." Greg waved his hands in the air melodramatically. "That is where the Chimera statue comes in. First of all, there are no fingerprints, like the knife, and the only blood was on the bottom of it where it was transferred from the table. That was Roxanne's blood, too. When I looked for more of the material pattern of the gloves, I found it. After much work, I discovered that there is an insignia from the gloves. Oh, and I had easily identify the gloves as leather from the pattern it made. They definitely were not cotton or anything like that. It turns out that they are made from tough _faux_ leather." Greg smiled. "Does that help?"

"Yeah," Sara said slowly. "Keep working on the on the statue."

"Will do." Greg gave a thumbs up.

Even after Sara walked out, she could hear the drumming of hands against metal lab tables.

_To be continued…_

* * *

Okay, Catherine and Sara might know Greek mythology, but I thought it was a nice touch to have Zoë explains what she thought. I love Greek mythology, just like her.

Please tell me your thoughts. Was it good? Bad? Have no opinion at all?

R&R


	6. Chapter 6

Here is chapter six.

**Disclaimer:** The idea is mine. That's about it.

* * *

Nick was back in Doc's office. The man was stumbling around the room, looking at labels on bottles and the putting them back before he found the right ones.

"This is the hair that I found on Miss Chapman's body," he said as he handed the other man small bottles containing the hair. "You can send the rest back up to DNA."

Putting a bottle up to his face, Nick commented, "It looks like it is red hair…. Maybe I can match this to the hair that fell off Bethany." Earlier, Nick had gotten a call from Sofia Curtis. He stopped what he was doing and had gone to the interrogation room. Sofia had been standing outside of the door, guarding it intently. She had told him that strands of Bethany's hair had fallen to the ground during their talk. Sofia also told him about Regina's allergies. Therefore, Nick bagged the hairs and went back up to the lab ant see Doc.

Doc raised an eyebrow at the statement. "Is that a very good idea?"

"Only if it matches," said Nick said as he marched off into Greg Sanders' lab.

"I have had a good amount of work lately," Greg mused when he saw Nick enter. "I think that I deserve something for all of this."

"How about that satisfaction of catching a killer," replied Nick. "Just run the hair on the body to Bethany's hair."

Greg rolled his eyes. "These things take time, you know. You have to be patient. It could take some time, and it could be better well spent."

"You're kicking me out of your lab," Nick huffed. "Fine, I'll go see what else I can find out while you compare the hairs. Call me when you know something."

Nick made his way back over to the coroner's room. It seemed that all he had done today was walk back and forth from the interrogation room to the every corner of the lab. _Today_, he thought, _is going to be a long day_.

"Did the toxicology for Regina Chapman come back yet?" Nick asked when Doc saw him again.

Doc fumbled over to the man. "Why, in fact it did. There were no drugs in her system, which is an amazing thing considering that she was a beautiful twenty-six-year-old woman in Las Vegas. According to her medical history, she was not on any prescriptions and the tox backs that up."

"What about her stomach contents?" Nick asked. Sofia had specified that he looked into that, and he remembered how he thought that Regina was at her kitchen table when she died. After this, he was going to trace evidence to see if the wood pieces on the body matched the ones from her chair.

Doc flipped through the pages of the report. "There was a mixture of things, I believe that it was a smoothie, but it had the strangest things in it: strawberries, bananas, and flakes if an assortment of fish and crustaceans. Maybe it is some knew health food fad, though it does not seem very interesting to me."

"No," said Nick. "It is murder."

***

Warrick was seated at the interrogation table, with Sofia standing behind him. She had been a big help in this case, but now it was Warrick's turn. Regina's maid was sitting across from him, her eyes wide.

Lo Johnson-Gare was a small girl, barely older than twenty. Her strawberry blonde hair was chopped short, but her bangs were overgrown and had fallen in front of her eyes; it was as if she hid behind them. She nervously glanced at her watch.

"You are Regina Chapman's maid," Warrick said.

"Of course I am," Lo replied. "I cannot believe what happened to her. It's horrible."

Warrick nodded. "That it is. Can you tell me anything about your job and how Regina treated you? Did you see her the day she died?"

The woman grabbed her paisley printed dress in her hands. "Oh, Regina treated me fine. The house, on the other hand… Well, it was usually a mess when I came on Mondays and Fridays to clean. I think that she had many parties. Her house is so _white_, too, that it is crazy, trying to keep it clean. It was a tough job, but it paid well…. And, no I did not see her the day she died."

"Do you know anything about Regina and Bethany LeClaire's friendship or her relationship with Leo Harwood?"

Lo thought for a moment before talking again. "Leo was a nice guy, from what I saw, and Bethany seemed to be over more than he was. However, I only worked there two days a week, but I was there long enough to see her friends…. There was nothing wrong from what I knew."

Warrick had an important question. "Did you know about Regina's allergy to seafood?"

"Yes." Lo nodded vigorously to accentuate her point. "Ms. Chapman made it very clear that there was to be no seafood brought into the house. She made it _really_ clear."

She glanced at her watch again. "I really have to go. My next job starts in fifteen minutes."

"Your next job?"

Lo sighed. "Yeah. I work two other jobs besides being a house cleaner. My dad got laid off a few months ago and now we need all of the money that we can get."

Warrick motioned toward the door. "Yes, go on then."

"Thank you," the woman said before she rushed out.

***

Hodges was humming to himself when Nick walked in. "Well, hello!" he said.

"You're in a good mood," Nick commented.

"Between you and me, today is wonderful," said Hodges. "What can I do for you?"

Nick spread his arms out, as if that described what he meant. "I came to see if the traces on the wood chips from the Regina Chapman case are in."

Hodges grew somber now that they were talking about their work. "Yes, yes, they did…. The pieces of wood that came from the corpse are a match to the ones pulled from the chair in the deceased's home."

"So she was in that chair not long before she died," Nick muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. "Is there any way to prove from these chips that she died in that chair?" Nick still believed that Regina had died there. Now that there was seafood found in her stomach, he believed it even more. _Regina_, he thought, _was poisoned by her allergies_. Doc had said that it was possible that her throat closed up due to the reaction. That was how she died of asphyxiation.

"No," said Hodges. "I do not think that there is. If there was blood in this case than it would be a different story…"

As he walked away, Nick called, "Thanks," over his shoulder. Now was the time to tell what he had found to Warrick. They would exchange the information that they pieced together.

Hopefully, they could derive a conclusion and come out with a killer.

_To be continued…_

* * *

I will flat out say that Regina's case has nothing to do with the Chimera killer. This is just a side case, but I think that it is important on its own. :}

Next chapter will have huge things with the Chimera Killer, though. Do not fret, there is much more to come.

I am not psychic and I cannot read your thoughts. So, tell me in a review!

R&R


	7. Chapter 7

Here is chapter seven.

**Disclaimer:** …No.

* * *

The call came in late that night. Sara was at her desk, sipping her coffee, and looking over the file case when the phone rang. She took down as many notes about the scene as she could from over the phone. Immediately afterwards, she grabbed her bag and made her way toward the door. Catherine had gotten the call too.

"What do we have now?" she asked when she saw Sara.

"Two dead bodies at a center outside of the city."

"Well, here we go."

They rode in the car in silence. It was easier to talk about the case when they were standing in front of it, not in the air-conditioned car. Besides that, there was not much more to say. Both women were thinking about things they should not.

Outside of the city was a plaza. It was small, but there were successful stores that were visited frequently. Now there were police cars and crime scene tape plastered around the area. The simple appearance that it had was now gone. Groups of people were clustering around the edge of the scene, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on.

"Nick and Warrick are still on their case, and ours is at a standstill," said Catherine. "We always need work, even if it is something we want to stop."

The shop that they were called to was a large building, but it was not the largest one in the plaza. The sign read ECHO. Next to it was a very small flower shop. The flowers overflowed through the building. On the other side of the center was a clothing store. The letters on the sign were unlit and it was hard to read from a distance, but the clothing that showed through the windows looked to be for older women.

"It is a center for people who are deaf, blind, or mute," said Sara, her attention returning back to the notes she had taken earlier. "The place is accessible to people who need help getting the things that they need because of their disabilities and the costs, or it is just simply somewhere they can discuss what they are faced with."

The inside of the center was clean and kept—but then Sara and Catherine turned around the corner and to the front desk. Two cadavers were slumped onto the floor, one on its side and the other face down. Blood was splattered on one wall in a long, single strike. The contents of the desk were thrown onto the floor, suggesting that there was a struggle. Pencils, pens, paper, and paperclips littered the room.

"Do you have any IDs yet?" Sara asked one of the police officers standing nearby.

"Yes," he said. "They are the owners of _Echo_. The woman is Dorothea Friar and that is her husband Elliot. An assistant found them this way when she came back from her lunch break. She said that everyone goes out to the restaurant at the other side of the plaza, but if there is work to be done, which is regularly, then the Friars stay behind and work through lunch."

"So no one was here when they were killed," Catherine said. "Interesting."

"Maybe that means that our killer knew when exactly to strike." Sara glided over to the scene.

Catherine followed her over to the bodies. "Which also means that this murder was not done on the spur of the moment," she said. "Someone was watching them."

Sara looked the bodies over. From what she could see, both of them were stabbed to death. Piles of blood were soaking into the carpet under them.

Catherine was examining the face of the deceased male. "His face is scratched," she muttered. "A blade was run across his face."

A scene started to form. "Let us say that the killer attacked Dorothea first," said Sara. "Elliot runs over to his wife and the killer swipes upward as an attack, and it hits him in the face." Sara saw this happen with the imagination of her eyes.

"That could work," Catherine said as she started to swab and bag. "We will have to fingerprint everyone who works here, though…. Did the killer leave the weapon? Will we have to look for it? Or did the murderer take it with him?"

Sara shrugged. They were not questions that she could answer at the moment. "It looks as if it was a knife," she said, pointing toward the stabs, even though it was hard to tell because of their clothing. "Stabbing looks like the COD."

Catherine nodded slowly. "Yes, it does, but we will have to wait for the coroner's report to be absolutely sure."

The blood spatter on the wall was in a strange pattern. "This is not from the weapon being stabbed into the victims," said Catherine. "It must be from when the weapon was pulled out of the victim. The knife, if it was that, was slashed out through the air, creating that blood splatter." Catherine checked out the wall. "That is what I think."

"That is what I think, too," Sara said when she joined her and looked over the wall.

They went on their way, swabbing and bagging. The things that littered the floor were put into their own bags. They tried to identify what blood belonged to whom and that too was swabbed. They would have to collect hair off the bodies after they got back to the lab. Nothing was out of the ordinary—it was a normal crime scene.

Fingerprinting was next. None were found on the bodies and there was no weapon to dust for. All of the workers at _Echo_ were fingerprinted and all of them agreed with no fuss or complaining. Everyone expressed their sorrow for the deceased, telling them how much that every person that they met loved them. The Friars dedicated all of their time to helping people and that was what made them so popular. They were just all around good people.

"I just cannot believe it," wept one woman. "They have no enemies—who would want to kill them?"

Sara and Catherine asked the secretary who found the bodies if she could check to see if anything of value were taken from the desks. After examining the main rooms, she shook her head. "No, nothing was taken." She checked the money that was hidden, and none of it was missing. They also asked for the video footage from the security cameras.

"So, why kill two people that everyone loved?" Sara asked herself.

Catherine overheard her. "That is because someone doesn't love them—this isn't just a robbery; no money was taken."

They shared a look and went back to work. They had seen this kind of thing before and they would see it again. There was no doubt about that. Then the CSI women started to search the entire center for the weapon, which they now presumed was a knife. There were only two floors, but it took some time for them to search everywhere. Starting with the top floor, they made their way down. Even if it was not a robbery, the killer could have stashed the weapon in one of the other rooms to hide his tracks. If they found a weapon, they might be able to get fingerprints and fingerprints meant they could catch a killer.

"Nothing," sighed Catherine when they had finished searching the top floor.

The bottom floor showed the same thing: nothing. However, the woman then entered a small, clean office. Sitting on the desk was the strangest thing: a statue of the torso and hide legs of a goat seemed to stand out from all of the piles of papers. On both sides of the statue, there were openings for other pieces of the statue to slide in.

Sara snapped a picture of the statue. "You know what this means, right?"

But, Catherine was already running toward the door. Sara followed her. The blonde woman was standing outside of the center.

"How could we have not figured it out?" she whispered, cursing herself.

"What do you mean?" Sara asked.

Catherine took a deep breath as she stared around the plaza. "The clues that Zoë told us about –just look at this place, Sara. The first clue was right in front of us! The center's name is _Echo_. It is from the story of Echo and Narcissus. Next door is a flower shop—narcissi flowers." The flower shop did not seem as bright anymore. The flowers were a leering sign of death.

"Well, what about the Graeae?" Sara asked. She did not see a dentist office or an optical office center. "I see nothing that has a reference to them…."

"Sara." Catherine was gazing upward now. "The sign."

The sign for the plaza read GREY SISTERS PLAZA. Grey sisters. _Gray sisters_.

_Now we have to find more clues_, Sara thought bitterly. _Unless there are none, but I highly doubt that_….

"I do know what this means," Catherine said, referring to the question Sara had asked earlier. "We have a serial killer on our hands."

_To be continued…_

* * *

The Chimera Killer has struck again! Oh, no!

The center being named _Echo_ was a big giveaway, but I liked it. Since Echo could not talk, the Friars named their center after her because of that. Does that make sense?

Please tell me your thoughts!

R&R


	8. Chapter 8

Here is chapter eight.

**Disclaimer:** Do you think I want to be sued? Do you really think that executives search around this site for stories without disclaimers so that they can sue the authors? I think not.

* * *

"Well, well, look who is back." Greg leaned back in his chair, looking very pleased with himself. "Dear little Nicholas."

Nick leaned against the table. "Just tell me what the results show, okay?"

Greg saluted. "Roger… So who do you think it is?"

"What?"

He sighed as if he were talking to a mere child. "Who do you think killed Regina Chapman? The boyfriend? The best friend? The maid?"

"I really do not care who did it as long as we catch them," Nick said forcefully. "Now, just tell me what you found out!"

He eyed the man. "Calm down. Jeez…" But then he smirked. "First I will tell you that I found no prints on the brick that was in the car that the body was found in—Warrick sent it here."

Nick could feel his anger rising. "What about the hair?"

"The hair that was found on the deceased is not a match to Bethany LeClaire's hair."

_Darn_, Nick thought. He thought that it would be a match—both the hair and the woman's hair were red. _Now we need to find out whose hair it is_.

"So, did I solve the case?" Greg asked.

However, Nick was already walking out the door to meet with Warrick. He was waiting outside of the main lab, his arms crossed.

"I just got done talking to the maid, Lo Johnson-Gare," he said when he saw Nick. "She does know about Regina's food allergies."

That was something. "I got the test results back from the wood chips that were on her clothing," Nick said. "They match the chair that was in her kitchen. She was there not long before she died, or, as I think, she died there…. Also, the hair that Doc found on Regina's body does not match Bethany LeClaire."

Warrick chuckled. "That might be a good thing. We could get our butts sued for taking hair like that."

Nick shrugged, but smiled. "Well, once I saw that the hairs were red, I thought that we could get a search warrant and then get our killer."

"Wait." The smile on Warrick's face vanished. "Did you say that the hair was red?"

"Yeah, it looked it, but I only had one piece to glance at, not a full head of hair."

Warrick tapped his chip thoughtfully. "We need to get two warrants. One will be for Bethany's hair. Yes, I know you tested it already, but we don't want to get sued, even if her hair is not a match to the victim."

"And the other warrant is for whom?" Nick asked as he followed Warrick down the hall.

"If I'm right, then you will see. I have a hunch about one of our suspects…"

***

Catherine wiped the sweat off her forehead. After finding the second part of the Chimera statue, she had sent in a call to Grissom. He was, to her knowledge, driving out there at the very minute. Now the Chimera Killer was definitely a serial killer. The MO was the same as the first case—stab wounds and a sterilized statue left on a table in plain sight. The only other option was that someone had planted the statue as a copycat, but the details of Roxanne Theseus's case were not leaked to the public.

Since the first case had clues about the second, Catherine and Sara were forced to search the whole center—again. It was tough work. Many businesses had taken people or animals from Greek mythology and made it either their name or product label. Not to mention that almost anything could have an underlining meaning that related to mythology.

An atlas was set on the top of the growing pile. Atlas was a titan forced to hold up the weight of the world on his shoulders. Even a box of cereal was put onto the list of possible clues. Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, was named Ceres by the Romans. It was later turned into the name for wheat cereal.

_If something as simple as an atlas or a box of cereal could be a clue, then this will be a challenge_, thought Catherine.

"I'm really starting to hate this place," Sara said as she too wiped her forehead.

Catherine stopped to think again. "The clues we found in Roxanne's home were in the room that the Chimera statue was in…."

"So, maybe, the clues are in the same room here, too," finished Sara.

They made their way back down to the front desk, where the couple had been slain. They went through the entire process again, but this time they wrote down whatever could be clues to the next victim. It was long work, for the Greeks had influenced many things. In its own way, it was almost amazing.

"I'm really starting to hate these people," Catherine said.

"The Friars?" Sara asked, confused.

"No, the Greeks," answered a voice from behind them. They turned around to see Grissom standing in the doorway with his case in hand. "It is amazing what they had accomplished, and it is even more amazing that we have based many modern things off their mythology."

"You sure took your time getting here," Catherine said as she set down a snow globe back onto the desk that she had taken it from. "We have already searched most of the upper level, but we then decided to come back to the room where the victims were killed. Now, we are searching _this_ part of the center."

Grissom put the case on the ground and started to put on disposable gloves. "Did you think to ask an employee whether or not something was different about the room than before the killings? If I am not mistaken, you did the same thing with Zoë Theseus."

Both Catherine and Sara rolled their eyes at the idea. Of course, they would have overlooked that small detail—and, of course, Grissom would be the one to point it out to them.

"Excuse me, miss," Grissom said as we walked over to the line of employees that were still waiting at the entrance. "Could you please tell if anyone else worked at or near the front desk?"

The woman rubbed her forehead from the stress of the day. "I would work at it if Dorothea or Elliot were working with one of the center's visitors. Why?"

Grissom pulled the woman over to the desk, where Catherine and Sara had begun to work again, though they watched him curiously. "What is your name?"

The woman pulled a handkerchief out of her shirt pocket and wiped her nose. "Li—Cindy Li."

Grissom nodded in approval. "Now, Ms. Li could you look around this room and tell me if there is something that was not there before."

"What do you mean by 'before'?"

"Before the killings," he said frankly.

Catherine leaned over to Sara and whispered, "He still is not a 'people person,' is he?"

Sara suppressed a smile.

Cindy Li was peering around the room, sticking her neck into the bookcases and around objects, for she was not allowed to touch anything. With the CSIs permission, she looked through the desk drawers and the insides of the cabinets. Finally, she went to the final case on the opposite side of the desk. "There," she said pointing to the top shelf. "Those three things up there—I do not think that they were there before—no, I know that they were not there before."

Catherine and Sara went to the bookshelves with Grissom. Sitting on the top shelf were four things: a DVD, a photo of a dove, an owl key chain, and a crudely painted gold apple.

"_Juno_?" Catherine said as she held the DVD up. "I never saw that movie…."

"Does this mean that there is another victim out there," Sara said to herself.

"No," said Grissom as he put the objects into evidence bags. "Not if we have anything to do about it."

_To be continued…_

* * *

And the mystery thickens…

R&R


	9. Chapter 9

Here is chapter nine.

**Disclaimer:** I own CSI… and I own the White House, too (psych).

* * *

Warrick tapped madly into the computer keyboard, all the while telling Nick about his conversation with Regina's house cleaner, Lo. "She seemed a little nervous, as if she was thinking about something else. It was different, though, from when people are about to confess. She was more…" Warrick chose the word carefully, "worried."

"Does this have anything to do with your theory?" Nick asked.

"Yes and no. She said that she had to go to a job of hers. Apparently she has to keep a few jobs because her father got laid off from his job—aha." Warrick pointed to the screen. "See this? This is the website for Chapman Photography, which Regina's father, Roger Chapman, owns."

Nick motioned toward the emblem on the webpage. "Yeah, I've heard of this place, and I have seen that symbol before."

Warrick went on flipping through the website. Unsatisfied, he went to a search engine and typed various combinations of words into it. Finally, he found what he wanted. "Four months ago, Chapman Photography laid off a total of forty-two workers."

"I think I see where you are going with this," said Nick.

The other man concentrated on the screen.

Once again, he went on typing into the searching engine. He bit his lip in frustration many times, but finally he came up with the page he needed. "Times like these, I love the internet," Warrick said with a smile. He scanned the list of names until he found the one he was looking for. "Out of the forty-two workers that were fired, only one of them has the last name Gare." He pointed to the name on the long list of fired worker: Mark Gare.

Nick leaned against the table that the computer sat on. "That's great, but did she have red hair?"

"Strawberry blonde."

They shared a look. "I think that we need to talk to the maid again."

The light of the computer screen filled the dark room with an eerie light. By now, though, the CSIs were used to it. And it was here, at the computer, that Gil Grissom was seated. He scrolled down the page, trying to find the exact spot he was looking for, before talking to Catherine, who was patiently sitting in the back of the room.

"Here we are," he said as he waved her over. "Greek mythology is a very interesting thing, I must say. The Greeks had a story for almost every possible thing that could not be understood without the science and technology we have today."

"That's great," said Catherine, "except for the fact that we have a man out there killing people because of it…. The Chimera Killer."

"The Chimera Killer." Grissom let the words roll over his tongue. "The objects that we found at the crime scene, the center _Echo_, can all be connect back to mythology. The problem, though, is connecting them. Let us start with the DVD." He held up a picture of the movie. "_Juno_ is the story of a pregnant teenager. However, Juno is the Roman name for Hera, the goddess of marriage and childbirth. The Romans took most of Greek mythology and turned it into their own; they changed the names of the gods and goddess. Most of the planets in the solar system are Roman names of the Greek gods."

"Grissom," Catherine said, cutting him off, "I realize that this is very interesting about the Romans and the Greeks, but can you please go back to the case."

The man fixed his glasses on his face before continuing. "Hera, the Queen of the Gods, had a temper. She was also depicted with a peacock by her side, but I do not think that that will be a factor in the case. If it were, the Chimera Killer would have left a feather, rather than a DVD. The second object was the photograph of the dove. We have thought of a dove to mean peace. It is also the sign of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. She was the wife of Hephaestus, the god of fire, but the lover of Ares, the god of war."

Catherine started to chuckle. "Even back then there were lovers and cheaters."

"Almost ironic, isn't it?" Grissom replied. "Aphrodite was one that liked to mess around with other people's love lives, for better or for worse."

"The Trojan War," Catherine said.

"Exactly. She had a magic girdle that would make anyone that wore it so attractive that everyone would fall in love with him or her. This made her powerful, for even Zeus would crumble to the power of love…. Next, we have the owl key chain. Owls are the sign of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. The animals are always shown as being _wise_. The goddess also carried around a shield, Aegis, which had Medusa's head on it. Athena was said to have sprung from her father's head, fully grown, and fully armed. The city of Athens was named after her. Before it was named, however, both Athena and Poseidon wanted it as their own—to solve this, they had a contest on who could give the people a better gift. Poseidon made a spring of salt-water spring up from the ground. While it was pretty, it was impractical. Athena gave them the first olive tree. Since olives could be widely used, the goddess won the competition and was the namesake of the city. Poseidon and she never did get along, though. Once she found him and Medusa in her temple together. Athena was so mad that she changed Medusa into the horrible creature that we see her as when Perseus killed her sometime later….

"Finally, we have the golden apple," said Grissom. "There are many sides to it. Hera took to giving the hero Heracles the Twelve Labors because he was the child of her husband, but not her. The eleventh Labor was to steal the golden apples of the Hesperides, which are on Hera's tree. In one story, Heracles offered to take up the job of holding the world from Atlas if he would get a golden apple from Hera's tree. However, the hero tricked the titan into taking back the world and giving him the apple. In yet another story, the golden apple is the apple of Eres, the goddess of discord and strife. There is a story that overlaps this one, and I believe that it is what we are looking for. When Eres was the only god not invited to a wedding, she decided to create mischief. For revenge she threw a golden apple at the feet of three goddesses."

Grissom pointed at the computer screen. There was a picture of a pure golden apple with the Greek words printed on the side: για την ορθότερη.

"It translates into _for the fairest_," said the man. "Do you know whose feet Eris threw the apple at?"

Catherine turned her somber face at the computer. "Let me guess—Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite."

"Precisely," Grissom said. "Zeus decided to pick a man named Paris to choose which of the women would get the apple. Athena offered wisdom; Hera offered all of Asia; and Aphrodite offered the most beautiful woman on Earth. Paris chose the latter offer: the most beautiful woman on Earth was Helene of Sparta. Unfortunately, she was already married to Menelaus, but when Paris came to 'pick her up' so to speak, she gladly went along with him back to Troy. This caused the Trojan War and made Helene into Helene of Troy."

"And this later caused Homer to write the epic the _Iliad_," mused Catherine. "This then led to the _Odyssey_."

Grissom scrolled down the web page again until he came up to another section of ancient Greek.

Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος  
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν…

_Sing, goddess, the rage of Achilles the son of Peleus,  
the destructive rage that sent countless ills on the Achaeans..._

"You must admit that it is a beautiful piece of work," muttered Grissom as he read the quote from the _Iliad_.

"But is it beautiful enough to kill for?" Catherine asked.

They both stared at the screen in a mutual answer.

* * *

Sara, like her coworkers, had been sitting in front of a computer screen for hours. She was trying to match the shoe print that was found on Roxanne's body to one in the system. So far, she had had no luck in finding any match whatsoever. She had gone through many of the most common boots and shoes, but found no luck.

"Hey," said a voice from the doorway.

Sara turned around in her chair to find Brass standing with a pile of files under his arm.

"I could hear you groaning from out in the hallway," he chortled. "What is the problem? Anything I can help with?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "I'm trying to match this shoe print—it is a very clear print—but I cannot find one. I have gone through many of the different shoe brands that are common in the area and are popular with people. I just cannot get _anything_."

"What about expensive shoes? Armani or whatever all that crap is?"

Sara laughed slightly and started to search the database. Earlier, she had narrowed down the style of the shoe from the outline and ridges. They were not work boots, nor were they regular loafers. The information that she had discovered along the way helped eliminate some of the shoes.

The computer started to beep and flash the MATCH FOUND sign when Sara pulled over one of the shoe prints to the matching screen.

"Well, will you look at that," she said. "We found the shoe print: Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords."

Brass snorted on the way out. "What did I tell you—crap."

Sara turned back to her computer. _It may be crap_, she thought, _but it is still crap of a killer_.

_To be continued…_

* * *

Athena is my favorite of the Greek gods and goddesses. I read parts of the _Odyssey_ last year in school. I liked it.

I find it ironic that Hera tried to kill Heracles, but both have the 'Hera' in their names:

Hera

Heracles

I found the Greek spellings off the internet, so I hope that they are right. I did do much research on it, though. I do not know how to speak Greek, but I think it would be cool to. :}

R&R


	10. Chapter 10

Here is chapter ten.

**Disclaimer:** I wish…

* * *

Lo sat across the table with her hands in her lap and her eyes glued on the table as if nothing else in the world mattered more. Her hair—for it was strawberry blonde, as Nick clearly saw—was pushed into her face so that it created a veil between the CSIs and her.

"We had a warrant for a sample of your hair, Miss Johnson-Gare," Warrick said as he neatly patted the papers into place.

"I know that already," Lo said quietly as she fidgeted with her hands. "You took a strand some time ago."

Nick pulled out a piece of paper with the DNA results on it. "You're right. We did take your hair samples a while ago. Now we have the results of the tests. Your hair was on Miss Chapman's body not long before she died. What do you have to say?"

Once again, the young woman started to fidget, but this time it was more obvious than before. "The day she died—I saw her."

"Wait a second," said Sofia said. She had been standing in the back of the room, and, until this point, had been silent. "From what my notes say, you told us that you did not see Regina the day that she died. Why did you lie?"

Silence filled the room like water in a tank. Finally, with a trace of reluctance, she said, "I did lie. However, I knew that if I told you that I saw Regina the day she died, then I would be a suspect. I cannot afford to be a suspect. I'm in a hard time financially, and I really needed this job."

Well, then," said Sofia, her voice contemplating what the girl had just said. "Carry on."

Lo chose her words carefully. "She came home early and was out of it. She seemed depressed about something. I thought that it would be a good time if I could ask for a raise. The job pained well, but I was just under the amount that I needed to support my family."

Warrick held up his hand to stop her. "That must have been after she came home from lunch with Bethany LeClaire. They had a fight earlier that day," he said to Nick, who nodded in agreement. "That was the reason why she was 'out of it.' "

"Then," Lo Johnson-Gare continued, "I asked her about my raise. Regina…uh, _Miss Chapman_… looked at me long and hard. 'I can't afford to do that right now'—that's what she said. Can't afford it?! She's rich, for Christ sake! I did not want a lot of money: only a small amount."

"So you killed her for it," said Nick.

Lo through her hands up into the air. "No!" Her voice was starting to rise. "I just pushed her, okay? All I did was push her slightly. It wasn't very hard—just a slight touch."

The CSIs looked at each other and then at the girl sitting in front of them. A deep frown was on her face, her brows furrowed, and she was gripping the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles had turned white. Deep lines of worry had creased across her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. Lo's eyes were a mix of pain, anxiousness, and despair.

"Your father worked for a company—Regina's father owned it, yes?" said Nick. "And from what we have learned, he was one of the many workers laid off from his job a few months ago. That is the reason why you have to work so many jobs. Your father has not been able to find one yet…. I am guessing that you freaked out when it happen. All of the responsibility of supporting the family was put on you now. Instead of being a young college student experiencing the world, you are stuck working so hard that you would worry about how you would survive the next day. All you needed was a little more money and life would be better. Maybe, when Regina refused to give you a raise, you snapped. You killed her."

"No!" Lo stood up and slammed her hands on the table. The sound echoed throughout the room. "I did not use seafood to poison her!"

"We…" started Warrick, his voice dying off. "We never told you that Regina died from consuming a deadly amount of seafood."

Lo took in a deep breath and froze.

"Sit down," Sofia said. "We need to ask you a few more questions."

The girl slowly sat down, letting her hair fall into her eyes.

"Why did you kill her, then?" asked Warrick. "Was it for the money that she would not give you?" It seemed like a harsh reason to kill a person, but they had seen worse happen to people.

"I did not kill her," Lo said loudly, but her voice wavered.

"I think that you got fed up," Nick said. "I think that you decided to take seafood, for you had admitted that you knew of her allergies, blended it up into a smoothie, and then put it in Regina's refrigerator so that she would drink it, not knowing about the ingredients. You wanted that money, so you killed her when you could not have it."

"That family," spat Lo, "is the whole reason for my troubles. My father was one year away from retirement and then he was laid off. Mr. Chapman laid him off! Now, we lost everything we had—all the money we had been saving up through points was gone because my father's job was gone…. And Regina knew, too, that it was from her dad's company that my father lost his job. She knew that I was working all those jobs. She knew everything, but when I asked for a small amount of money, to make my life easier, she said no. _'I can't afford to do that right now.'_ Bah!" Lo started to vigorously wring her hands. "So I snapped. I went out, bought a package of seafood and put into her smoothie that was in the fridge. I knew that she would drink it, but I did not expect her to _die_. I just thought that she would break out in hives, or something." Lo was looking at them with pain in her watery eyes. "When I went back later that day to see what would happen and I found her on the kitchen floor, dead. I freaked out and put her in her car, then placed a brick on the gas pedal, and let it hit a tree…. I didn't know that it would kill her."

"That," said Warrick as Sofia went to her with handcuffs, "is still murder."

***

The cases were a jumbled mess. Both the Roxanne Theseus case and the case of the Friars were intertwined. It was making life very hard for Catherine and Sara as they searched through piles of interviews, medical papers, and information about the victims that Brass had dropped off at the lab.

"Here's something," Sara said. She held up work info. "Roxanne worked at the Geico Company building as a secretary for the head of office of the department. It says here that she took almost every Saturday off to be with her child, Zoë…. Do you think that she took _too_ much time off?"

Catherine waved the idea away. "That is not a very good motive—" she looked up from her own paper "—and it says here on the workers absent list that she barely sent any other time out of work besides Saturdays."

"So she was a caring, single mother that understood she needed to work as much as she could to pay the bills," Sara said to herself, "but at the same time realized her daughter was important to her, too…. It doesn't seem to give Zoë motive, either," she said, this time to Catherine.

The other woman started to search through another pile of papers. "Are you saying that Zoë could have lied about her account of the story?"

Sara shrugged. "It's possible; we have seen it before. She gave us the clues, too, and they turned out to be true."

"Well, then," sighed Catherine. "I think that it would be a good idea to question her about her home life. After, that is, we go to Roxanne's employer."

"We need some suspects."

"Or better yet, a killer."

_To be continued…_

* * *

What will Catherine and Sara find in Roxanne's office?

Lo Johnson-Gare is Regina Chapman's killer. Are you surprised and shocked? Does it make sense? Tell me! Please, just leave a review...

R&R


	11. Chapter 11

Here is chapter eleven.

**Disclaimer:** I-ay on't-day own-ay, his-tay how-say. :}

* * *

The Geico building loomed out in front of them. The actual company, however, was only on the third through fifth floors. As they women entered the lobby, the security guard eyed them thoughtfully.

"You got a pass to get in?" he asked through bites of doughnut. "Cuz, I can't let ya inside without a pass, you know?"

"Here." Catherine stuck out the pass the company had sent them earlier. "We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Geico gave us that so we could visit them."

The security guard rubbed the back of his balding head. "Um… well, okay, then. They elevator is right down the hall."

"You sure made a show of getting us in," Sara whispered as they walked away.

"I just hate being treated like we're lower than people like him," Catherine said matter-of-factly.

The elevator was crowded with people going up to their floors. Many were talking on their cell phones ("No, I told you that that report is due when I get there. It better be on my desk in five minutes.") or drinking coffee. The elevator stopped at every floor until the fifth floor finally came around. Catherine and Sara got off and left the noise behind, to step into a long quiet hallway with many adorning doors. In the very front of the hallway was a small, cluttered desk. Sitting behind it was a woman with large, coiled brown hair, and thin, square glasses.

"Can I help you?" she sighed in an automatic voice. Obviously, she said the sentence often.

"Can you show us to the office of Mr. Geoffrey Carrey?" Sara said as she showed the secretary the pass. "We need to talk to him about Roxanne Theseus."

The woman jumped up from the chair and rushed to the other side of the desk, tripping over her own feet. "Oh," she wailed, "do you know anything about what happened to Roxanne? She was just a lovely person. It's a terrible thing—what happened to her!"

Sara nodded. "Yes, it is a terrible thing. Now can you bring us to the office?"

She had started to walk down the hallway and stopped at the last door. "This is Mr. Carrey's office. He is the head of this floor of the company." She knocked loudly on the door. "Mr. Carrey!"

"What? Who is it?"

"It's Liv—Miss Wilson," the woman stuttered.

"Oh, yes; come in."

The CSIs followed the secretary into the office. She closed the door behind them. In the middle of the room sat a large desk with piles of paper neatly stacked upon it. There were filing cabinets and bookshelves on both sides of the room. Everything was in its place; nothing was out of the way or in an odd spot. Sitting, then, on the chair behind the desk was a young man. His blonde hair was cut short and his wisp of a beard was neatly trimmed.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes," said Sara. "May we ask you some questions?"

The man leaned forward in his chair and placed his elbows on the desktop. His chin rested on his hands. "May I ask who you are?"

"We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab," Catherine repeated for the second time that day.

"Ah, of course," said Geoffrey Carrey. "You are here about Ms. Theseus, I presume. What a horrible, horrible loss. She was a fine secretary, and a very wonderful person." He smiled sickeningly. "It has been quiet a hassle trying to find a replacement for her."

_This man gives me the creeps_, thought Sara. _He does not even seem depressed that a woman who worked for him has been brutally killed. He is more worried about how this will affect his job_.

"How long had Ms. Theseus been working for you?" Catherine asked, ignoring the man's last sentence.

Carrey sat back in his chair and involuntarily brushed off his suit jacket. "I did not realize that I would be questioned…. No matter, I will answer," he said thoughtfully. "Roxanne Theseus had been working as the head of office's secretary for many years, though I do not know the specific number of years. I, however, have only had this job for two years. A promotion can work wonders." He added the last thought with a smile. "Like I said before, she was wonderful at her job, and she will be missed."

Sara and Catherine looked at each other questioningly. "Do you mind if we take a look around Roxanne's desk and ask some employees questions?" Sara asked.

"Do you have a warrant?" Carrey asked icily. He pulled out a pen from his shirt pocket and placed it on the desk, taking time to line it up perfectly with the edge.

"No," Catherine said warily. "Is there any reason that we might need one?"

The man placed his hands flat on the desk. "No, there is no reason that you might need one. I was just… curious, that is all. I must request, though, that you do not spend too much time talking to my members of staff, for they have work to do."

"Of course," Sara said, trying not to snarl. "Do you mind, then, if we examine _your_ office?"

Geoffrey Carrey shrugged carelessly. "You may look, but please do not touch."

Sara immediately went to the bookshelves. From where she was standing, one book—blue and gold in color—stood out from the others. Surrounded by deep black books and binders, the volume was easily spotted. Sara read the spine and motioned Catherine over. "Was does this look like to you?" she whispered.

Catherine tilted her head sideways to read the spine. _Greek and Roman Mythology_.

The woman said nothing, but instead went on inspecting the room. Carrey watched their every move, never taking his eyes off them. When they were done, they thanked him and made their way out. The woman let the office door slam behind them on their way out. The hallway was so quiet that they could hear their own breathing. Before starting down the hall to find Roxanne's office, the women conversed about Roxanne's boss.

"That book!" exclaimed Sara. "It was of Greek mythology. Our killer has been killing off that and then Roxanne's boss _has a book_ about it."

Catherine let out a long, tired sigh. "We cannot make accusations like that without full proof, even if our gut is telling us that. We need to find out more about him first. Anyone could have a book about mythology—it is a popular thing to study."

"But why would he keep the book at work?" Sara asked, more to herself than to Catherine. "It doesn't make sense. The way he talked about Roxanne being dead… it sounded as if he did not care about her. Then he asked if he had a warrant. He has something to hide."

"Now that I can agree on," Catherine said. "Did you happen to see what type of shoes he was wearing? Our killer stepped on Roxanne."

Sara shook her head. "The desk was in the way. Do you think that he wears Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords?"

"I don't know, but I could not see his feet either," she replied. "He probably could afford those shoes and it is the type of work place where someone might wear them. Someone just became our number one suspect," she mused.

The brown haired woman was still sitting at the front desk in the beginning of the hallway. When she saw the CSIs, she once again jumped up from her seat.

"Can I help you with anything?" she asked pleadingly.

"What is your name?" Catherine asked.

The woman stood up straighter when asked that. "Olivia Wilson, ma'am." Just as she spoke then telephone rang. "Ooh, excuse me one minute," she said as she picked up the phone. "Hello? Hello?" Olivia Wilson made a confused face.

Catherine started to chuckle. "You have to press that button on the phone pad." She pointed to the TALK button.

Ms. Wilson put her hand on her face and shook her head before pushing the button. "Hello?" she tried again. "Oh, yes, that's right… Yes, we have your appointment down for next Thursday…. No, it will not…. Yes, we will see you then." She put down the phone with a loud click. "I'm so sorry for that. I was promoted to the front desk. Julia is going to take Roxanne's job once the new week starts. I got Julia's job, here at the front desk, but I am still not quite use to the job—or the phones…. It was so bittersweet," the woman continued. "Because a coworker died, I get a better job." She stared down at the desk with a deep frown on her face. "Oh, now I'm sorry for telling you all of this. It isn't your problem."

"No," said Sara. "It is okay."

Catherine nodded in agreement. "Could you please show us where Roxanne's office is, then, Ms. Wilson?"

"Of course!" She started down the hall, not checking to see if they were following her.

"That was interesting," Catherine whispered. "We may have learned something very important, there."

"Motive," said Sara as they walked to the dead woman's workplace.

_To be continued…_

* * *

Suspects are starting to emerge. And, yet, the Chimera Killer still has one last piece of the statue. Who will be the next target?

R&R


	12. Chapter 12

Here is chapter twelve.

**Disclaimer:**

"NCIS? Never heard of it. Is it like CSI?"

"Only if you're dyslectic."

-from NCIS

* * *

"Hey Warrick!"

The man turned around in the lab to see Nick rushing toward him, a single piece of newspaper in his hand.

"What's up?" Warrick asked, curious of what was so important.

"I have been searching all over for you," said Nick. "Look what I found out from the newspaper! It was even on the front page. I can't believe it."

Warrick read the heading on the side of the paper: _Chapman Goes Bankrupt_. The article told of how the Chapman industry filed for bankruptcy on Friday due to the poor economy. All of the workers' pay was being cut by forty percent, but it was doubted that it would be enough to save the company. If profits did not come back up by the middle of next month, then the industry would have to close down for good.

"So when Regina told Lo that she could not afford to up her pay," Nick said, "she really did mean it. She must have known that her father's industry was not doing well, and that it would be in her best interest if she saved her money."

Warrick shook his head at the thought. "Yet, she still paid."

***

_The Judgment of Paris, Las Vegas_

Grissom typed into the search engine. Four hundred sixty-six thousand items came up. None of the ones on the first page was what he wanted. Grissom skimmed through the other five pages before going back to the search bar. This time he tried another search.

_The Iliad, Las Vegas_

Twenty-seven thousand six hundred items came up. Most of them were tickets to a Las Vegas showing of the epic. Grissom clasped his hands together. This was going to be long work. Fortunately, most of the ticket sales were from the same site, or were selling tickets for shows that had already been shown. Sadly, the play of the famous epic was not very popular with the crowd.

_People do not appreciate the classics anymore_, thought Grissom.

The clues that the Chimera Killer left at _Echo_, the center for hearing, seeing, and speaking impaired, had led Grissom to do this search. It had been found out that all of the clues—a golden apple, a DVD, a photograph of a dove, and an owl keychain—were connected. They described the judgment of Paris, the incident that later caused the Trojan War. The War was documented in the epic, the _Iliad_, though most of it is believed to be mythology. The follow up to the _Iliad_, the _Odyssey_, told the story of Odysseus, a fighter in the Trojan War, and his long journey home. However, none of the clues had been directly connected to the _Odyssey_. Grissom was not truly sure if the Chimera Killer was hinting at the _Iliad_, but he was going on a hunch. The judgment of Paris was related to the epic and the clues had told them about the event.

Grissom kept at the search. The play was already selling tickets in multiply theaters in the Las Vegas area. None of these places, however, were showing the play until late next month. The serial killer that they were searching for had killed in a short period of time. The killings of Roxanne Theseus, and Dorothea and Elliot Friar had happen happened with only weeks in between them. If the murderer was keeping his MO the same, then he would kill much sooner than that. Therefore, either things were changing, or Grissom was looking for the wrong thing.

_What could I possibly have missed?_, he thought. _I have not overlooked something; I checked out anything that the clues could possibly have meant. What, then, is the Chimera Killer trying to tell us?_

Grissom picked up the pictures of the newest clues and studied the objects carefully. There was nothing that stuck out about them, nothing that seemed strange. What could he be missing then?

"Hey."

He swiveled around in his chair to see Nick standing in the doorway.

"Yes?"Grissom asked, peering over the top of his glasses.

Nick threw a stack of paper on the desktop. "Here's today's newspaper," he said. "It has worked out pretty well for Warrick and me so far. Maybe you will find something interesting in it." He smiled teasingly. "Or you can just do the daily Sudoku if you want."

The elder man almost smiled. "Thank you, Nick," Grissom said. His voice implying that it was time to leave.

"Oh, and one more thing," Nick replied as he reach the door. "The Doc wants to see you down in Autopsy. He's done with the Friars."

The newspaper was warm from being in Nick's hands. Grissom read the front page and then went on looking through the A-section. The B-section of the paper did not have anything that interested Grissom. In the C-section, he stopped to read the short article of the killing at Yale. Finally, something caught his eye in the last part of the paper—the D-section. A heading on the side column was promoting local news. Halfway down the page a subheading read: _School to put on Play_. There was only one sentence under the heading: _Ofterd High school is putting on a play based on the famous epic the _Iliad_ by Homer starting next week at the school_.

"Well then," Grissom said to himself. "We just found ourselves a winner."

***

"Here it is." The woman—Ms. Wilson—opened the office door. "Take your time."

"Thank you." Sara and Catherine found themselves in the small, clean office of Roxanne Theseus. A desk, barely the size of an end table, was placed in the corner at an angle so that Roxanne could easily move to the other side. An outdated computer sat on the desk, producing a low hum. Piles of paper were on the floor, left there for someone who would never return. And, opposite of the computer, were half a dozen picture frames.

"Look at this," Catherine said as she snapped a photograph of the desk. "All of these photos are of Roxanne and Zoë." Sara and she gazed over the frames. There were pictures of the mother and daughter laughing and acting silly; others had the pair at social or school events. They appeared to be any other normal family.

"And to think that Lindsey won't even let me take a picture with her anymore," Catherine scoffed. "I'll have to use this against her when I get home."

Sara smiled at the thought. "See did not have very much room."

"Huh?"

"Roxanne," Sara clarified. "She did not have a lot of space here. The room is extremely small, the desk barely holds all of the work that is done, and the computer is outdated—not a place that I would like to work at.

Catherine slipped on the rubber gloves that they wore so faithfully. "What are you getting at?"

"Maybe," said Sara, following the other woman's lead, "she told her boss, Geoffrey Carrey, that she wanted a better office. From the looks of it, she does a fair amount of work…. When she told Carrey this, he flipped out. He went to her home and killed her."

Catherine sat down in Roxanne's chair and grabbed the computer mouse. "That could be, but we need more than that…."

Sara snapped a picture of the entire layout of the room and started to take down dimensions in her sketchbook. "What about Olivia Wilson? She was promoted to the front desk, which she said was 'a better job' than her last one. That is a reason to kill Roxanne."

"Don't forget," said Catherine, "the killer was a man, according to Zoë. Ms. Wilson would have needed a partner….

Sara shrugged—it had happened before. "That woman named Julia must not be very happy to get this office."

The other woman turned the computer monitor so that Sara and she could see well. "Now, let's see what we can find on the computer. I'll check email first." Sara peered over her shoulder at the monitor. The email screen, bright blue and, fortunately, completely full, was pulled up. Many of the virtual letters were from other associates regarding work that had to be done or other work related things. None of the sent or received messages held anything promising. Next, they went to the recently deleted trash bin. Only one email was in it.

_From_: _Sent to_: 

_Subject_: you know

Mr. Carrey,

I know what you are trying to do. I also know that it would put my job at risk. I _need_ this job, Carrey, okay? However, what I also know is that it is against the rules our company carries. No, it is not the fact that you want someone else in my position, but _whom_ it is that you want in my position. That could get you fired, and I know that you do not want that.

Just think about this. You know exactly what I am talking about.

R.

_To be continued…_

* * *

Now, _that_ is an email. Something is suspicious about it, too…

I do know that you all are reading, so why don't you leave me a little review telling me how you like it.

R&R


	13. Chapter 13

Here is chapter thirteen.

**Disclaimer:** Nope, I will never admit that I do not own CSI.

* * *

"I think it is very clear to say that multiple stabbings was the cause of death." Doc wiped his hands on a towel before shuffling over to Grissom at the autopsy tables. Dorothea and Elliot Friar lay on the cold metal slats, their eyes closed in peaceful sleep.

"Elliot suffered a deep cut to his face," the coroner carried on. "The blade ran through the cartilage in his nose and across the tissue in his face. It is not the COD, but it most likely played a factor. The pain would have been enough to knock him over, not to mention that the angle of the cut would have forced him over. Moreover, he was stabbed a number of times—four to be exact. Then we have his wife, Dorothea. Like the first, she was stabbed to death, this time eight stabs. She was left on her side for a small amount of time before the workers found them, but it was long enough to show me that she was dead a reasonable amount of time before everyone's lunch break ended. I suspect, then, that they were killed not long after lunch started."

"The killer must have timed the killing perfectly," said Grissom, "that way he would have had time to escape and get far away before the cops were called. That also means that he was watching them."

Doc leaned against one of the empty tables. "You think that the Chimera Killer has planned this entire thing out." It was not a question.

"It seems that way."

"Sometimes I think it is better to be a medical examiner," Doc sighed as he stared at the deceased. "There is less to beware of."

Grissom followed him and stared out at the bodies of the victims. He fixed his glasses on his face before quoting:

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Doc chuckled. "You don't seem like the Lewis Carroll type of person to me."

"I'm not."

"Oh, there is one more thing that I wanted to tell you." Doc lumbered over to the bodies. "They were not killed with any regular knife. Since the murderer left the knife he used at Roxanne Theseus' home, he needed a new one to kill with. However, the stab wounds are very thin and measured to less than half an inch; they are deep, though, suggesting that it was long in length."

Grissom processed the new information. "So it was not a knife that killed them."

Doc waved his hand around in the air. "Hmm, I would not say that. It is _knife-like_."

"Thank you for the help," Grissom started to say when his cell phone went off. He pressed it to his ear impatiently before slapping it shut.

"Where to, now?" Doc asked with a smile as Grissom made his way toward the door.

"The video tech room."

***

"Hello Zoë."

The girl pushed her glasses up her nose and stared at Jim Brass. "Hi."

"How are you doing?" he asked conversationally. Zoë's grandmother was sitting next to her, on the other side of the table. The old woman had on a thick sweater despite the heat of the room. She was glaring at Brass as if he was the cause of all the family's hardship.

Zoë turned her studded bracelet around her wrist out of habit. "I don't know. I'm doing okay, I guess." She shrugged with her words.

Brass resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Teenagers—they gave the worst answers.

"Well, then, how is Zoë adjusting to her new… life?" This question was intended for her grandmother, Belinda Theseus, who was now Zoë's legal guardian.

Mrs. Theseus grabbed the edges of her sweater. She was not used to being in an interrogation room, and her uneasiness was expected. "My granddaughter has been fine. It is taking time for her—for all of us, really—to heal from what has happened, but I must say that she has been doing well. Zoë is going to a new school. She likes all her teachers and has even made a few friends. If only I could do something about the way she dresses…" She shot the girl a look and pulled at the end of her t-shirt.

"Jeez, Grandma," Zoë muttered. "It isn't a big deal."

"Yes it is," replied Mrs. Theseus.

Jim Brass cleared his throat, bringing the attention back to him. "Zoë, I hope you don't mind me asking, but what was the relationship with you mother like?"

Mrs. Theseus put a hand over her mouth. "What a horrible question to ask of—"

"Gram!" Zoë turned to her head to stare at the older woman. "It's okay, alright? They're the police; they need to ask this kind of stuff." She turned back to the Homicide Detective. "It was pretty normal, I guess. We fought over stupid things sometimes, but it was nothing huge. Mom would take time off to hang out with me when I wasn't with my friends. We would do weird things together, like go to the Renaissance fairs or see movies with the worst reviews. She would help me with my math homework and make dinner at the same time…." The girl's voice died off at the end of the sentence.

"See?" exclaimed her grandmother. "Look what you have done. You made her all emotional."

Zoë just stared ahead at Brass. Her eyes were shining slightly, but besides that, her face held no emotion. Mrs. Theseus and Jim must have been looking at two completely different people.

"So nothing out of the ordinary happened between the two of you lately?"

Once again, her grandmother spoke before she could. "I cannot believe this! Are you suspecting my granddaughter of killing her own mother? Didn't you see her when her friend found her on the ground? She was unconscious! What kind of people are you?!"

"I…" Zoë cleared her throat and then started again. "I would never kill anyone, the least of all my mother. But my grandma is right—I can't believe this either. Never would I do something like that. _Never_."

"Is there a reason why anyone would want her dead?" he asked, changing the subject.

She met his eyes and simply said, "No."

Brass pulled out a piece of paper and pushed it across the table. "You know that we have a serial killer on our hands. He kills out of things that remind him of Greek mythology. We want to know why he targeted your mother, if you know the reason why."

"Gram," Zoë said softly as she turned to the woman. "Could you please leave for this?"

The old woman looked hurt. "But—"

"Please."

Without a word, Mrs. Theseus got up from her chair and made her way to the door. It closed after her with a soft click.

"My last name," Zoë stated, "is Theseus. In Greek mythology, Theseus was a man who killed the legendary Minotaur in the Labyrinth in Crete. Ariadne, King Minos' daughter, gave him a ball of string so that he could find his way out of the maze, which was created by Dædalus, the greatest inventor of the period."

Brass nodded to himself. The crime lab already knew this piece of information, but they were hoping that they might find out more from Zoë. "So that is the reason why your mother was targeted, because of her surname."

Zoë suddenly turned away, and buried her face into her shirtsleeve. She forcefully shook her head. "No!"

Brass stood up when he realized that she was sobbing.

"No! It's all my fault." She picked her face up, tears streaming down it. "There's more, there's more…."

He handed her a handkerchief and watched as she wiped her face. It did not help much; after the tears were mopped away, more silent tears silently flowed out. However, she appeared calmer than what she was moments before. "Can you explain, Zoë?"

"That's the reason why," she choked out. "Right there. My name—my full name…." She stopped and dabbed her eyes once more. "Zoë comes from a Greek word meaning life. I'm a walking reference: _Zoë Theseus_. That was why I became so obsessed with Greek mythology—my whole name was made out of it."

Suddenly, the meaning of this hit Jim Brass. "You are saying that the Chimera Killer was not after your mother, but was after you?"

Zoë covered her face with the handkerchief and nodded.

_To be continued…_

* * *

Shocker! Or maybe not…. How would you like to live knowing that your mother died when it was suppose to be you?

The poem that Grissom quotes is from "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. It is a nonsense poem and my absolute favorite. My penname comes from it. Grissom always stated so poems, and that was the only one I knew. :}

R&R


	14. Chapter 14

Here is chapter fourteen.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own this series, but I do own Law & Order (not!).

* * *

Grissom stood peering over the shoulder of Archie, the video technician at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Dozens of windows were up on the computer screen.

"This is the video feed that we received from the _Echo_ center and from the surrounding areas outside and in the parking lot," said Archie. "I searched through most of it, to see if there was anything interesting that happened before or after the attack. I found nothing."

"But did you find the video recording of the actual killings?" Grissom asked.

"Look at this."

He pushed a button and the computer screen jumped to life before Grissom's eyes. In the front room of the center, two people—Dorothea and Elliot Friar—were hard at work at the front desk. At the same time, they looked up at something out of the shot. Then, another person walked into the room from the direction that they were looking in, and in front of the desk. His head was covered with a dark ski mask. The video had no sound, but it was clear to Grissom that the couple was shouting. Then, the masked man rushed up to Dorothea and pushed her down. Elliot rushed at him; the killer swiped his hand upward and across Elliot's face with the knife-like object he held in his hand. Elliot fell down on the ground, causing the masked man to kneel down beside him and start stabbing. When he was done, he got up and went after Dorothea, who was pinned to the ground, and stabbed her, too.

Archie froze the video. "There's our witness."

"Can you freeze a shot of the weapon?" Grissom asked.

The video tech shook his head. "Sorry, but I've already tried. The picture is not clear enough and the killer is frequently in motion." He rewound and paused the video at a spot where the murderer's hand was high in the air, getting ready to strike. The picture was completely blurred; it was impossible to tell what it was.

Grissom pointed his finger at the unrecognizable weapon. "Zoom in."

The tech did what he was told. The pixels grew larger until they filled half the screen.

"They are gold," Grissom commented. "You can't tell what the shape looks like, but you can still see the color. That is definitely gold."

"The Chimera Killer had a gold knife?" Archie scoffed. "Must be loaded."

Grissom turned to stare at him and shook his head in discontent. "What else did you find?"

"I _can_ show you something else." He switched to another screen. It showed the outside plaza that the center was located in. A figure—the masked man—was rushing from the scene and into a nearby car. He quickly turned on the car and sped out of the lot, never taking off the mask that hid his identity.

Grissom looked at Archie, expectantly.

"Well…" The man drew out the word. "There was no license plate on the car; I already checked. However, we can, obviously, tell what _type_ of car it is. That might not be the biggest of help, since there are _how many people_ in Las Vegas but—"

"What type of car is it?"

Yet another window was pulled up. "It is a 2007 Saturn View in silver—not that that narrows it down, but it is a start, right?"

Grissom was already heading towards the door. "He couldn't have driven a Lamborghini…"

***

"What do you think of this?" Catherine asked Sara. The email was still up on the screen.

"Carrey might know what she was saying, but we sure don't," the other woman commented. "Do you think that it would be enough to get a warrant?"

Catherine exited out of the window and pulled out a flash drive. She slipped it into the computer and pulled the entire email box onto the symbol in the corner. Once the information was safely stored, she took it out of the computer and stood up. "Yes, it will—especially since Mr. Carrey had a book of Greek mythology in his office." She waved the camera in her hand. "And the pictures we took will definitely help."

Also, picking up her camera Sara started for the door of Roxanne's office. "I think that we should ask Ms. Wilson some more questions."

"I agree."

The woman was still at the front desk when they came through the hallway. She was staring at a packet with a confused look on her face. Suddenly, the telephone started to ring, and Olivia Wilson snatched it up immediately. By now, she had learned how to operate the phone. Only when the headset was back in the receiver did she glance up.

"Oh my!" She grabbed her chest. "You scared me. I wasn't expecting you two to be standing… right there." She cocked her head to the side. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Yes, actually, you can. May we ask you some questions, Ms. Wilson?"

The brunette paused for a moment before answering. "Sure, I don't see why not."

Catherine flipped through the pictures on her digital camera. She showed the secretary one of the photos. "This is Roxanne's office. Has it always been this way—the layout, I mean?"

She nodded her head, letting her curls bounce around her face. "As long as I've been here, at least."

"And how long _have_ you worked here?" Sara asked.

Ms. Wilson counted on her fingers. "About six months," she said.

The CSIs shared a look—Olivia Wilson had not worked at the company for very long, opposed to Roxanne Theseus, who must have worked there for years. And what a coincidence that Ms. Wilson got a promotion after Roxanne died…

"What," Sara asked, her voice dying off. "What was Roxanne's relationship with her boss, Geoffrey Carrey?"

She straightened up at the mention of Carrey. "They seemed to be on good grounds. Roxanne was the kind of person that seemed to get along with _everyone_. She would always tell us on our lunch breaks about her daughter…um…" She shook her head. "I cannot remember her name."

"Zoë."

"Yes, that's it," Olivia confirmed. "There always seemed to be a story that she would tell us about her. Roxanne was concerned about how she was quiet and reserved. I can't see how someone as nice and outgoing as Roxanne could have a shy daughter."

The secretary seemed to have avoided the initial question. They were about to ask her more when she declared, "I'm sorry, but I really must go back to work. It is a busy day and I have not yet got the handle of things here." She gave them an uneasy smile and quickly turned her head down at her paper-covered desk.

Walking out of the Geico building, the CSIs traded their thoughts on the workplace.

"Something is going on behind the scenes, there," Catherine said.

"We just got ourselves two more suspects," Sara commented. "This puts our suspect list up to… two."

Catherine had to smile at the comment. Both had to admit that the case was not moving quickly in terms of suspects. Also, with one more piece of the statue left, they would have to find the Chimera Killer before he killed his next victim. The last thing that they wanted was to have another murder on their hands—and on their hearts.

"Did you notice how Olivia Wilson kept away from truly answering the question that we asked her about Roxanne and Geoffrey Carrey?" asked Sara.

"Yes," Catherine agreed. "She doesn't seem to be very…," she paused, looking for the right word, "…_good_ at her job."

"Which makes me wonder why anyone would want Roxanne out of the picture?" Suddenly, Sara reached into her bag and pulled out her vibrating cell phone. She nodded for a few moments and then hung up. "That was Grissom. We need to get to the lab—and quickly."

Catherine sighed. "We're on our way."

_To be continued…_

* * *

This is not the most exciting chapter, but if you read it carefully, you might notice some things. Important information is learned and it will be used later.

R&R


	15. Chapter 15

Here is chapter fifteen.

**Disclaimer:** Don't you just love a good mystery based off characters you do not own?

* * *

"Welcome back," Grissom said, his voice strained. "How was your ride?"

"Sorry," Sara and Catherine replied in unison as they entered the office in the Crime Lab.

"There was thick traffic," Catherine said while she put down her bag.

"And you know how traffic in Vegas is," added Sara.

Grissom watched as the woman walked to the other side of the room and took a seat at the table next to Jim Brass. Catherine followed soon after her. They both looked up at him earnestly and, at the same time, impatiently. Obviously, they had discovered important information, too.

"Shall I go first or shall you?" he asked.

Catherine placed her hands together. "We don't know why you rushed us here, so I suggest that you talk first."

The man paced back and forth between the table and the door many minutes before talking. "Where to start?" he asked himself. "I believe…" he drew out the last word, "that I have found the next target of the Chimera Killer. Now, I am not completely sure—can anyone be completely sure until the actual killing happens?—but I truly believe that this is a reliable lead. The problem, though, is that this murder is directed at children, and we need to take extra steps to protect them and to protect us. I believe that the Chimera Killer is planning his next kill around the _Iliad_. All the clues were aimed at the Judgment of Paris, which is a very important part in Greek mythology; it sets up the Trojan War."

"So," said Catherine, "we find the _Iliad_, we find the killer?"

"Not exactly." Grissom pulled out the newspaper that Nick had given him and placed it on the table. "See this add, the one for the school play? That was how I made the connection. When I was researching the play, I found out that none of the theaters in Vegas are showing the play until months from now."

Sara raised her hand to stop him. "What if the Chimera Killer plans to strike later on in the year? There are serial killers who are known to do that."

"Yes that is true," he replied, "but the MO of the Chimera has not been killing in a time span of months. The murders of Roxanne Theseus, Dorothea and Elliot Friar were committed in a matter of weeks. Serial killers can change their ways of doing things, but many times this takes longer to do. The Chimera would not change his way of committing these murders so easily. When I saw this advertisement for the Ofterd High school play, I knew that it was right."

"Another question," Catherine said. "How would the Chimera know about the play?"

Grissom pulled out five sections of the newspaper. Each part was of the D-section. "I found the newspaper of the last four days. As the first paper, the one from today, shows, there is an advertisement for the play. I could not find any newspapers dating before four days ago, so I called the company. They told me that the ad has been running for the past _three weeks_. The Chimera Killer definitely could have seen this, and planned the murders and the clues he was going to place at the _Echo_ center."

"The high school wanted to get it out there that they were having a play based on the _Iliad_," Brass said, "and, unfortunately, the wrong person saw it…."

"Why don't you tell them about Zoë?"

Brass straightened up in his chair. "I talked to Zoë Theseus this morning. She sent her grandmother away and told me something very… interesting. Her name was built off Greek mythology. Zoë—Greek. Theseus—Greek mythological hero."

Catherine furrowed her brows. "What does that mean?"

"The Chimera Killer was not after Roxanne, but was after Zoë," Brass concluded. "Zoë knew it, too. She is so disturbed about that fact that, she blames herself for her mother's death."

"And she figured this out by herself?" Sara asked.

Brass gave a curt nod. "Yeah, that's what she said. Once she started thinking about it occurred to her that she was the intended target; it freaked her out."

"Then why didn't she come to us when she thought of this?" Catherine muttered. "And why was Roxanne stabbed and Zoë came out with barely any cuts?"

The Homicide Detective leaned across the table. "I met her grandmother. The woman barely takes anything Zoë says seriously. She probably could not get the woman to believe her. Also, the girl looked scared out of her wits…."

"We do not know why Zoë was not killed, and her mother was. It might be something only the Chimera can answer. Now, Grissom turned to Catherine and Sara. "Well, you implied that you discovered something."

Both women pulled out their cameras and showed off the pictures. "This was found it the office of Geoffrey Carrey, Roxanne Theseus' boss. We also found this email on Roxanne's computer." Catherine pulled out the flash drive, and Sara showed off the picture of the email.

"Is it enough for us to get a warrant?"

Brass flipped out his cell phone. "Oh yeah."

***

"Thank you for coming with me on this," Gil Grissom told Nick and Jim. "Sofia is all caught up trying to get Sara and Catherine a warrant, and they are still going over information on the Chimera's victims." He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. The Chimera Killer was overloading them with work.

"No problem," Nick said from the passenger seat. "For once there are not any other cases that need working on. This is our top priority. We'll catch this guy, Grissom; don't worry." He seemed to be reassuring himself as well.

Brass just shrugged. "This is my job."

The car pulled into the entrance of Ofterd High School. The school was very modern looking, with square wings coming off the main building and large, glass windows down the sides. Most of the parking lot was full, but there was an empty spot in the back.

"Of course all of the teachers took the close parking spots," Nick commented as he got out of the car. "My high school never looked like this."

The inside of the school was new looking, too. The walls were painted a bright blue and the lockers were a darker shade of the same color. The trio found the office with ease.

A woman was sitting at the front desk, talking on the phone and popping her gum. She grabbed a piece of paper and started to scribble madly on it. "Uh-huh. Yep. Of course. No problem, dear. Alright, see you tomorrow." She slammed the phone back down and swiveled around in her chair. "Colleen! That was Arianna on the phone. She's going to be out sick… _again_."

Another woman at the back desk smiled knowingly and shook her head. "Yeah, she's _sick_ alright. What has that girl missed—five days in the last two weeks?"

"You're telling me."

"Excuse me," Grissom said. "We called the school earlier."

The woman glared up at them. "You're gonna have to be more specific, sir. A lot of people call this school. What'cha here for?"

Grissom bent down so that he was closer to the woman. "We are with the Crime Lab and are here to see the principle."

"Oh." The woman's face paled slightly. "Go on in…" She pointed to the door marked _Principle_.

As they walked toward the door, Brass whispered, "You might want us to do the talking, Grissom."

Sitting at a desk was a man dressed in a neat suit. His skin was as dark as his hair. When they entered, he stood up and shook hands. "I am Daniel Sampson."

The men introduced themselves.

"May I ask why you are here?" the principle asked with a hint of strain in his voice.

Jim looked at Grissom and then at Nick. "We suspect that there is a target on your school."

"A target! Do you mean like a bomb?" Mr. Sampson coughed and tried to keep his voice calm. "What do you mean?" He seemed to be repressing his emotions; there was no need for him to freak out at every threat that came his way. This was the Vegas area, after all.

"We are investigating a series of murders and they have suggested that your school may be the next target." Grissom was impressed on how Jim did not mention the words 'serial killer.' "We are concerned for the safety of your students and teachers."

Mr. Sampson got up from his chair and paced around the back of his desk. "What?! You are telling me that someone is trying to _murder_ a person at this school?"

They all stared at each other, knowing how bad it sounded—for it was, indeed, bad.

"Yeah," said Nick, "in a nutshell."

Mr. Sampson put his fists on the desk. "No, I won't believe it!"

Grissom leaned forward in his chair. "Sir, someone is going to be _killed at this school_ if we do not do anything about this. Please, try to reason with us."

"Why should I?"

"Because," Grissom said simply, "this is a matter of life and death. And for all you know, it could be your life that is on the line."

_To be continued…_

* * *

This is not one of my favorite chapters. However, it needed to be done. The first part explains what the different CSIs have learned; even though the reader knows this information already, the story would not make sense to the characters without this part. The second part sets up the next chapter.

I made up Ofterd High school, just to let you know.

R&R


	16. Chapter 16

Here is chapter sixteen.

**Disclaimer:** I am sitting at home, watching CSI right now. Think that's a clue?

* * *

"Back so soon?" the security guard at the Geico office building asked as Catherine and Sara came rushing by. "You two are busy gals."

They hurried toward the elevator, ignoring the man at the desk. The elevator seemed to move at the slowest possible rate, stopping at every floor, only because they were in hurry to get to the offices. The Motown music played out from the speakers tauntingly.

"Oh!" Ms. Wilson watched as they walked past her and down the hallway. "Welcome back… but where are you going. Wait!" She jumped out of her chair and raced after the CSIs, failing at it while in her high-heeled shoes.

Catherine knocked on Geoffrey Carrey's door.

"Yes?"

"It's the Las Vegas Crime Lab."

There was a long pause. "You may come in."

Carrey was sitting at his desk, his hands folded together and a tense look on his face. His jaw tightened slightly when they entered his office. Nonetheless, he motioned to the chairs in front of the desk. "Would you like to sit?" He managed to keep his voice calm and the slight arrogance that was there the first time they met him still showed in his tone. "What can I do for you ladies today? Is there anything that you have found out about Miss Theseus' murder?"

"No," Sara said curtly. She handed over the pile of papers that was warrant. "We have a warrant to search your office and your home."

"What!" The voice came from behind them. Catherine and Sara turned to see Olivia Wilson standing in the doorway. "Geoff—uh, sir—I tried to stop them from coming down here, but they kept on walking."

Carrey waved his hand in the sir. "It is no problem."

"But—"

"Ms. Wilson." He said it sternly. "Go back to your desk, okay? This is my personal business."

The clean-cut man turned back to his visitors. "What is this warrant for?" He flipped through the papers and read a specific page. Geoffrey Carrey gazed up at them with a look that Catherine never would have thought could come from that man: confused.

"You want to look at _my shoes_?" He let down his guard and let his emotions pour out. "Why would you want to see that? How the heck is that going to help you?"

"There is a certain type of shoe that we are looking for," Sara answered. "We have reason to believe that you might have those shoes."

Geoffrey continued to search through the warrant. "I don't understand this? What the heck are Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords? And how does having a book on Greek mythology in my office suffice to getting a warrant?"

"Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords," Catherine said, "is the brand of shoes that we are looking for. They are very pricey and seem to be something that you would wear."

"Shoes," the man spluttered. "Shoes—like I pay attention to what type of shoes I wear! I couldn't tell what _type of suit_ I'm wearing right now!"

The crime scene investigators shared a look. _Men_.

"The book," Sara said, motioning to it on the shelf, "has more to it that meets the eye."

Carrey put his head in his hands. "You think that I killed Roxanne," he moaned. "I would never do that—I _could_ never do that. Why would I want her dead?" he asked.

"You tell us," said Catherine. She pushed a copy of the email across the desk.

The man froze. "Oh… that." He leaned back in his chair and started to choose his wording. "Is it going to hurt me if I do not explain this email?" he asked.

"Only if you are guilty."

Carrey glanced up at the office door, checking to make sure that it was closed. "Look, I knew that the front desk job paid well, and that it was a good job for someone to have. There is someone here at the office that I wished had that job. The problem was that for that person to get the job, Roxanne would be bumped out, so to speak."

"And Roxanne found this out how…?" Sara asked

He actually squirmed in his seat. "I wanted this woman to get the job because… because…" he could not seem to get the rest of the sentence out, "because I am dating her."

Catherine tried not to smirk. "Let me guess who 'this woman' is," she said. "Olivia Wilson."

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess."

Geoffrey Carrey put his hands on the desk and did not look up. "Roxanne caught us together one day. This is against the workplace rules and she knew it. The woman was smart, very smart; she put two and two together. She sent me that email telling me that she could turn me in if her job was put at risk. I was never going to go through with it; I really was not. Then she was killed and Liv got the job she wanted."

_It makes sense_, thought Catherine. _She did seem very worried about Carrey, not to mention that they kept calling each other by their first names_.

"But," he said sternly, "I did not kill Roxanne."

_We will see about that_, she added silently. _We go on what the evidence tell us_.

"We need to see your shoes," Sara said. "Now."

He swung his feet up onto the top of the desk and motioned toward his shoes. "Go right ahead." His voice had its icy tone back. "But I did not kill Roxanne Theseus."

Sara and Catherine examined the shoes that Carrey still wore on his feet. They took out pages with the shoes and compared them. Finally—with Geoffrey Carrey's permission—they took off his shoes and checked the label. They were not Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords, much to the disappointment to the CSIs.

"They are not what we are looking for," Catherine said.

A smile parted on Carrey's lips. He almost sighed in relief. "I told you that I did not do it," he said smugly.

"You do realize that we have officials searching your home as we speak," said Sara. "It is in the warrant. They are looking for the Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords. If they find even one pair, you could be done for."

"Only," said Carrey, "if they match the shoe you are looking for. There are people in the area who own…," he looked at the paper, "Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords. The only way you can convict me is if they match exactly." He gave a huge smile. "And trust me, I know that they do not match."

A long silence filled the room, as water filled a glass. Every person stared at the other.

Finally, Carrey coughed uncomfortably. "What will happen with Liv and me?" he asked without emotion.

"That is up to your boss to decide," Catherine said. "I suggest you tell him or her that you have been dating one of the employees. It is better than if your boss found out through the grapevine. Maybe, if you are lucky, then things will turn out the way you want."

"Is that your way of saying sorry for accusing me of being Roxanne's killer, Ms. Willows?" Carrey asked smoothly.

"It depends—we have not proved that yet."

_To be continued…_

* * *

Did anyone see it coming that Carrey is dating Olivia Wilson?

There is more to come with the Chimera Killer.

R&R


	17. Chapter 17

Here is chapter seventeen.

**Disclaimer:** Yo, dawg this ain't my show!

* * *

"Sir," Jim said, his voice level as they sat in the office of Ofterd High School. "You have to calm down. Sit down and we will try to talk this out."

Daniel Sampson grabbed the edge of his desk and forced himself to sit. He seemed completely shaken, but most people would be if they were in his situation. Someone was targeting his school and plotting to kill.

"Why?" he asked, and his voice shook. "Why is this happening? Are you sure that you have the right place? Kids can be cruel sometimes and they make many enemies, but I can think of no one that would go so far as to kill one of them!"

"That is the thing, though," said Nick cautiously. "We are not exactly sure who the killer is targeting. It could be one of the students, or the teachers—it could be more than one person. There are great lengths that people will go to, to kill over simple things. We want you to realize that there are things about people that do not make sense. We do not understand why this person is doing this, but we do know that we need to protect the people of this school."

The principle grasped his hands together until his knuckles turned white. "Then how do you know that it is this school that has been targeted?"

"That is something we have to clarify," Grissom stated before anyone else could answer. "We have information from past killings that led us to here. If I am not mistaken, then your drama department is putting on an adaption of Homer's _Iliad_ that starts next week."

Sampson nodded his head and agreed with the statement.

"The evidence that we have indicated the _Iliad_," Grissom continued. "We searched for places in the area that are putting on the play. None of the theaters around here are playing the _Iliad_ at all or not until months from now. From the patterns that have arisen, we suspect that the killing will happen in weeks, if not, by now, in a matter of days. That cut out the possibility of it being at a big name theater."

"Which brought you to this school," Sampson mumbled unbelievingly. "But why would the _Iliad_ be the indicator?"

"Greek mythology," Brass said briskly. "He is obsessed with Greek mythology."

Daniel Sampson took this information in quietly. He did not move at all for many minutes. Finally, he took his hands away from his face and rubbed his head. "What can I do? What will the school have to do? What can possibly happen to these people? And how will you protect us if you do not know who the target is?"

Brass said, "Can you give us a list of all the people working in and on the play?"

"Yes, of course."

"And may we meet these people?"

For a moment, a look of a confusion passed Sampson's face, but then it was gone. "Um… okay. They practice after school, which is in about fifteen minutes. You can talk to them if you want to, but, for the sake of the students, could you not tell them that you are with the Crime Lab?"

Brass glanced over at Grissom and Nick. "I think we can manage that."

---

"She is quite good," Grissom whispered to the others.

They were sitting in the back of the auditorium watching the rehearsal of the play. A girl, about sixteen years old, was on center stage, reciting her lines with ease. A man and a woman were at the bottom of the stage, pointing and directing people and props. Suddenly, one of them shouted out and everyone stopped. The man jumped up onto the stage and ran to one of the extras. The woman made her way to the stairs and scurried to the main girl.

"That," Sampson said, pointing to the woman, "is Katarina Baumgartner. She is the drawing teacher here, but she also works on the plays every year. Mrs. Baumgartner is very much into the _art _part of the productions.

"The man is Hector Ibáñez," continued Sampson. "He has been directing these plays for the past three years, since the school has opened. He's a good man."

The rehearsal had started again. The girl was still the center of attention, but now there was a boy next to her. They were talking deeply and moving about the stage with fluid motions. The woman, Mrs. Baumgartner, was bouncing up and down as they practiced.

Grissom leaned in to hear the principle better. "And what is the name of the children on center stage?"

"That is Natasha Corey—she is playing Helene of Troy. She has been in almost every play since he started high school here." Sampson squinted his eyes to see the stage better. "And the other one is Tyler Larston. He has the part of Paris, if I remember correctly."

They sat there for many more minutes until the crew took a break. At this point the trio, lead by Sampson, walked down the long aisle to the stage where Mrs. Baumgartner and Mr. Ibáñez were conversing quietly. They looked up when Sampson came near.

"Mr. Sampson," Mr. Ibáñez said respectively. "What can we do for you today?" He was a tall, well-built man with short-cropped hair and a deep tan that stayed year round.

"And who are your friends?" Mrs. Baumgartner asked innocently. Her voice held the hint of an accent that matched her bright, frizzy blonde hair. It was unsuccessfully pulled away from her face with a bandanna. The long, draping clothes that she wore were almost as distracting as her hair.

Sampson had to take a deep breath before talking. "This people are here to ask you some questions. Would you mind answering them?"

Mrs. Baumgartner pushed her hair over her shoulder. "Vhy, of course ve vill."

Brass turned his back so that he was blocking the view of the curious students. He pulled out the police badge that he carried with him.

"Hey!" Sampson turned an angry face on him. "You said that you would not tell them that you are with the Crime Lab!"

"I did," Brass replied. "But I never said anything about telling them I am from the Police Department."

Mr. Ibáñez held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa wait? What is this about? The Crime Lab? Police Department?"

Brass stuck the badge back in his pocket. "This nothing against you. We want only want some information that you might be able to provide with us. No one here has done anything wrong; all we want is information about the play that you are putting on."

Mrs. Baumgartner flopped down in one of the theater chairs. "But vhat vould the police vant vith our play? These are good kids; ve are good people. I just do not understand."

"Whose idea was it to have a play based off the _Iliad_?" Brass asked, ignoring the woman's question. "Was it a group decision?"

Both of the teachers looked at each other, both waiting for the other to answer. "We both decided on it," Mr. Ibáñez said warily. "We thought that if we did it this year then next year we could do a play based off the _Odyssey_."

"They are classics," said Mrs. Baumgartner as she pumped her fist through the air for emphasis. "There is no arguing vhy ve chose it. Many and most high schools choose it as their play vonce in their history—"

"The lead roles," Grissom interrupted. "Mr. Sampson here pointed out two of them. Would you be so kind as to point out the rest of them?"

Mr. Ibáñez peered over Brass' shoulder. "Kids—take another five minutes, we're still talking here. Okay?" The children went quiet and then, a moment later, started to talk again. "That is Tasha and Tyler," he said quietly to the officials. "They play Helene and Paris." He searched the crowd of people. "The three girls sitting down over there—they play the goddesses. Mira is Hera, Gwen is Athena, and Felicia is Aphrodite. The Judgment of Paris is a huge part in our version."

_And in the killer's_, thought Grissom.

"Ricky plays Achilles." He pointed to one of the boys. "Devon plays Hector." He pointed again. "Taylor plays Odysseus." Another point.

"May you excuse us for one moment?" Grissom asked. He pulled Brass and Nick to the side of the auditorium.

"What's up?" Nick asked worryingly. "Did you find something out?"

"Yes," Grissom said coolly, "the next target."

_To be continued…_

* * *

The next target? I wonder who that could be…

There was a lot of talking in this chapter, but it had to be done. Sometimes you learn the best things from just listening to other people.

R&R


	18. Chapter 18

Here is chapter eighteen.

**Disclaimer:** I could never think of all the sweet one-liners that this show has.

* * *

The second Sara's cell phone rang she picked it up. Catherine and she had been working on Roxanne's paperwork while they awaited the call. Maybe it was the slow, meticulous work that they were doing, but time seemed to pass at an extremely slow rate. The room was quiet—there was no noise except the ruffling of papers. Finally, when the phone did actually ring, Sara and  
Catherine jumped in their seats. The buzz of the phone was enough to shock them.

"Hello?"

"Sara—this is Sofia."

"Hold on one moment." Sara placed the phone on the table and put it on speaker, that way Catherine could hear as well. "Okay."

"We are at Mr. Geoffrey Carrey's house." Sofia's voice filled the room. "And the police are searching through his shoes. I swear, he has more shoes than I do!" The sound of laughter in the background broke through.

Catherine leaned in toward the phone, though it did not do any good. "Are there any Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords in his house?"

The line was quiet. All that came through was a soft buzz.

"No."

The word hung in the air. Neither of the women wanted to move. How could it be that their suspect—their only suspect—was innocent? All they needed was one pair of Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords and they would be one step closer to the killer. Now, with that one lead gone, they were back where they started.

"Nothing?" Sara asked, her voice strained.

"I am sorry, but the man does not have anything of the sort. There are no shoes here that were _even made_ by Giorgio Armani. Most of them are regular brand names that you could get at Wal-Mart. Sorry, but Geoffrey Carrey does not own what you are looking for."

"Thanks, Sofia," Sara sighed. She closed the cell phone with a _click_.

"There goes our lead." Catherine brushed her hair back from her face. "He could not have stepped on Roxanne Theseus' body."

"I wanted this guy," Sara blurted out. "I thought that it was him. He got on my nerves, he had the reason to do it, he just didn't _sit right_ with me, you know. I wanted it to be him—I'll admit it—I wanted it to be him."

Catherine sat there quietly.

"What? Please say something, Catherine. It makes me feel worse when you are silent…"

"I know what you mean. There are times when I want, it too. You feel horrible for thinking it—it almost makes you as bad as the actual killer—but it happens. You work so hard to get them and then… they are not who you are looking for."

"Times like these make you feel like you failed your job."

"We have not failed," Catherine said. "We followed our lead and it ended somewhere else. It does not mean that we failed; it means that we searched everything in order to find a killer."

Sara stood up and put the phone back in her pocket. "Yeah. That's the thing about this job—you almost forget what you are doing and why."

Catherine smiled slightly. "As long as someone puts you back on the right track, then you are fine."

"Remember," Sara said suddenly, "whenever, we were in his office, how clean it was? He was always putting things into place and lining them perfectly? Well," continued Sara, "think about it. Someone as OCD as Carrey could not have dealt with all the blood and mess that took place in Roxanne's killing."

"That is true," mused Catherine. "So…Should we call Carrey and tell him that he is off the hook or should we let him sweat it out a little longer?"

***

"The next target?" Brass mumbled. "Well, that makes me job easier."

Nick pressed, "Who is it?" He glanced over his shoulder at the expecting people.

Grissom refrained himself from looking at the group. "Mr. Ibáñez."

"And how did you figure this out?" asked Brass. "It could be Mrs. Baumgartner or any of the children. The clues indicated the Judgment of Paris; any of the kids playing the three goddesses or Paris would be my logical choice. But I'm not the boss here…"

"Thank you for that input," Grissom said, indicating that he was growing impatient. "I _listened_ to them. That is how I know who the target is." He did not continue.

"Are you gonna tell us why Mr. Ibáñez is the Chimera Killer's target?" Brass asked.

"Hector."

Nick suppressed his chuckle while Brass was trying not to become frustrated. "_Explain_, Grissom—we are not getting far with these one word answers."

"Hector is Mr. Ibáñez's first name; it is also a character in the play. Hector is a Trojan prince, the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba. He kills Achilles' best friend. The man becomes so grief stricken and enraged that he kills Hector and pulled his body behind his chariot around the walls of Troy."

The men stared at Grissom for a long time. "You knew this the moment you heard Ibáñez's name," Nick stated. "Why did you wait until now to tell us about it?"

"Well, I wanted to be certain that their version of the _Iliad_ include Hector, though I would be surprised if it did not. When he said that 'Devon plays Hector,' I knew that my hunch was right. There are two Hectors here and the real one is our target."

Brass held up his hands to stop Grissom from talking. "Great, but how would the Chimera know that Ibáñez is working on the play—and that his first name is Hector?"

"It is pretty easy," Nick put in. "You just have to type in the name of the school and the teacher's last name on the internet. Articles will come up with their full name."

"And," said Grissom, "Sampson told us that Mr. Ibáñez and Mrs. Baumgartner have been doing the plays for years."

Brass dug down into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. "I think that this is enough for us to get a warrant. We're going to catch the Chimera before he catches us."

***

Warrick placed the kitchen knife on the lab table and picked up a piece of paper. On it was pictures of the puncture wounds and slash marks on Dorothea and Elliot Friar. He pulled over the marks he had just made with the kitchen knife and compared it to the pictures.

There was no match.

He had already gone through many knifes and various weapons that could have caused the wounds on the unlucky couple. As the Doc had said, they were long, thin marks that were not consistent to any ordinary kitchen knives or pocketknives.

Truthfully, Warrick was stumped on what type of weapon could have killed them.

"Hey, you have some mail."

"What?" Warrick turned around to see Greg standing in the doorway with a pile of mail in his hands. "You do realize that I am in the middle of testing weapons right now," Warrick said. "Now might not be the best time for me to read my postcards."

Greg shrugged. "Just thought that you might want to know that someone other than the tax collector sent you a letter. I'll leave them on the desk outside."

Warrick sighed and looked at his work on the table. He had been working for hours and was getting nowhere. Maybe a little break would do some good. He picked up the mail outside—there were two work related letters. He put his fingernail under the seam and tried to rip it across. It would not budge.

_Where is someone with fingernails when you need them?_ Warrick thought.

He rummaged through the pencil holder on the desk. Finally, he found what he was looking for: a letter opener. He ripped it across the top and pulled out the letter.

_I wonder_, he thought, looking at the paper opener. He dropped the letter on the desk and turned back to the lab, the letter opener in hand.

_To be continued…_

* * *

I wonder too…

We are getting closer to the Chimera. What could happen next?

R&R


	19. Chapter 19

Here is chapter nineteen.

**Disclaimer:** I would have forced Grissom to stay on the show if it was mine…

* * *

Hector Ibáñez sat at the table, nervously wringing his hands together. He kept looking up and across the room, waiting for someone to come in. Grissom and Brass watched him from the other side of the one-way window.

"What do you think is going through his head right now?" Brass asked. Ibáñez had begun tapping his fingernails on the table's surface, still looking around him. "He appears to be a little… skittish, if you know what I mean."

Grissom watched the man for another moment before answering. "Well, the Crime Lab and Police Department shows up at his work, asks him some questions about what he has been doing with the school play, and then tells him to come back to the station. No wonder he is nervous—he does not know what he did wrong."

"Unless, he did do something wrong, and now he is afraid that he got caught," Brass grumbled.

"True," Grissom replied lightly. "It is not as if we have not seen that before."

Brass grabbed hold of his knuckles and cracked them loudly. "Shall we go in?"

"We shall."

The moment the door opened, Ibáñez lifted his head up. He jumped out of his seat and stood there, in front of the table, looking lost and unsure of what was happening. Brass and Grissom sat down in the chairs opposite from him. Slowly, Ibáñez sunk down back into his. The small, cramped room filled with silence as the men stared at each other, waiting for someone besides themselves to talk first.

"Why am I here?" Ibáñez finally asked, his voice gruff. "I have things to do. We are still putting on the play, and opening night is next week. The kids need me to be there. Mrs. Baumgartner cannot do it alone."

"We understand that," Brass said, "but there are much more important matters that need attending too."

"Important matters? Like what?"

_Your life_, thought Grissom.

Jim pulled out photographs and placed them on the desk. One was of Roxanne Theseus, the other of Dorothea Friar, and the final was of Elliot Friar. Their ghostly white faces stared up from the shiny pictures, their eyes open, but never seeing.

Ibáñez pulled back as if he had been stung. "Who are those people? Are—are they _dead_?"

"Roxanne Theseus," said Brass, slapping the picture on the table. "Dorothea Friar." Slap. "And her husband Elliot." Slap. "All of these people were killed by the same person, Mr. Ibáñez."

Recognition filled the man's eyes. "You think that I killed these people, don't you! I do not even know who they are! I have never seen them before in my life…!" His voice trailed off at the last sentence. "No, no that is not true, he mumbled to himself. "I _have_ seen her before."

"Which one?" Grissom asked, hope and worry filling him at the same time.

"Her." Ibáñez pointed to the picture of Roxanne. He made sure that he did not actually touch the picture, as if it would attack him if he did.

"Where?" Grissom asked, his tension rising.

Ibáñez held his hand over his mouth, trying to recall where it was. "Oh, yes, I remember! It was at the post office. I remember her because she was trying to send a package to someone—I think it was her parents—and the man at the desk would not take it for some reason. She was getting all flustered, and it was holding up the line. I remember, because I was right behind her. She kept saying that it was important that it be sent, 'cause her daughter made it or something like that. Anyway, it took me forever to get finally to the desk. By the time I got there, I had missed my lunch plans. The line at the post office is always long, but that was ridiculous…. So she is… dead?" He had a hard time getting the word out. "You really don't think that I killed all these people, do you?" Ibáñez's voice recovered from the falter quickly. He was back to defending himself.

"Actually," Grissom said calmly, "we do not believe that at all."

Ibáñez looked at him incredulously. "Really? I mean, that's great, but then why am I here? Why are you telling me all of this?"

Brass pulled out more photographs and placed them on the table, next to the pictures of the deceased. "You are putting on a play based off the _Iliad_, right? Then you must know a little Greek mythology."

"Yes," Ibáñez said, confusion filling his voice. "But not very much."

"These pictures," Brass continued, "are all clues that the killer left behind for us to find. The Chimera Killer, as he has been dubbed, bases his killings off Greek mythology. The clues are also from Greek mythology. The last clues that we have found came from the killing of the Friars. They brought us to the school you work at. We believe, Mr. Ibáñez, that you are the Chimera's next target."

The man stared at them, his mouth hanging open. "_Me_?" he said, poking himself in the chest. "I cannot even think of anything that I did wrong. It's not as if I have many enemies—and none of them would want to _kill_ me!"

"The targets of the Chimera have not done anything wrong," Grissom said before Brass could explain. "They have been killed because of their unfortunate connections to Greek mythology. You are the same, Mr. Ibáñez. Your first name is Hector. There is a character named Hector in the _Iliad_."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Ibáñez gasped. "This is all happening because my name is Hector, and I happen to be directing the school's interpretation of the _Iliad_?" No one answered the question, rather letting silence fill the room like water in a glass. Suddenly, he said, "What about the killer? How are you going to catch him? How do you even know that it is a _man_—do you have any proof to work off of besides these _clues_? You have to catch him. I don't want to be killed!"

Brass pulled out another picture. This one showed Zoë sitting in the hospital, ice over her head, and bandages over the scratches over her arms. "We do have other evidence, sir. We also know that the Chimera Killer is a man. See this girl; her name is Zoë Theseus. She is Roxanne's daughter and she survived an encounter with the Chimer Killer." Brass pushed a photo across the table, showing a frozen moment of the video from _Echo_. "We also have a surveillance video of him in the act."

"We did get to you before the Chimera did," Grissom said bluntly.

Ibáñez opened his mouth to say something, but then thought the better of it. "That _is_ true… But what are you going to do about the play? I cannot let the kids down, but I don't wanna be murdered."

"We have different ideas on how to do that," Brass replied.

A knock on the door stopped him from continuing. Warrick poked his head through the half open door.

"Excuse me," he said apologetically, and waved Grissom over. The man stared over his glasses at Warrick, annoyed that they had been interrupted.

"What is it, Warrick?"

Warrick pulled out a paper that confirmed his lab tests. "I found the type weapon that was used to kill the Friars. It was a letter opener."

Grissom pulled off his glasses and looked at Warrick questioningly. "A letter opener. I have never heard that before…. Ibáñez said something about seeing Roxanne Theseus at the post office one day. I wonder…" He started to walk back into the room, when he stopped and turned back around. "Good job, Warrick."

Warrick chuckled to himself, and murmured, "It is not big deal."

"Mr. Ibáñez," Grissom said after he sat back down. "I have one question to ask you. How often do you go to the post office?"

The Hispanic man furrowed his brows in confusion. "At least once a week. I am not that good with computers; I prefer written letters rather than email. Is there a reason why you are asking this?"

Grissom let a small smile spread across his face. "Oh, I just need to send someone a letter."

***

"You know that I could not get you a search warrant off the evidence you gave me, Grissom," Brass said gruffly as the car pulled into the post office that Hector Ibáñez had mentioned. "There are not enough specifics. The judge would not take it unless we got more information."

"Yes, but you did get a warrant that will give us video footage from the post office," said Grissom, as he held up the warrant.

"True. Maybe that will give us as much as necessary. Then we might be able to actually solve this case before anyone else is killed."

The office was full of people, some putting letters into slots, others placing packages on the counter. As he stood in the doorway, Grissom found it hard to believe that technology had lessened the amount of written letters; there were so many people there, sending things out. Brass had already gotten in the long line. It was obvious that they were going to have to wait until they could get to the front desk, which was crowded with people. Grissom checked his watch, and followed Brass into the line.

Finally, they got to the front desk. A man, middle-aged with graying hair, was waiting for them, a bored frown on his wrinkled face.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, his voice monotone.

"We would like to see the adviser of this post office," said Brass.

The man raised an eyebrow questioningly. "That would be me… Is there a problem?"

"Why don't we talk in a quieter place, Mister…Peter McConnell," Grissom said, reading the man's nametag. "If you do not mind."

McConnell looked at them suspiciously, but agreed. He brought them into the back and into an office. Once there, the men explained their reason for being at the post office, showing him the police warrant. McConnell gazed at them, unbelieving, but Grissom and Brass were use to it. After a few flustered minutes, McConnell rushed out of the room, telling them to stay where they were, and ran down the hall. He came back later, carrying a box in his hand.

"This is all of the security footage of the last month and a half," McConnell sputtered, out of breath. "Take it."

"Oh, and if you do not mind, we would like a list of all the names of the people who work here," Brass said, though the warrant did not call for it.

McConnell's eyes narrowed, but he turned toward the door once again. "I'll be right back."

"You better be," Brass muttered as he watched McConnell scramble away.

_To be continued…_

* * *

We are nearing the end of the story. I hope that you have all enjoyed it.

R&R


	20. Chapter 20

Here is chapter twenty. This is the last and final chapter. Thank you for reading. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have had writing it!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own CSI.

* * *

"First, I would like to say thank you for giving me such a large amount of video tape to watch," Archie said to Gil Grissom, "and secondly, thanks for giving me actual help on it."

Grissom had assigned Catherine, Sara, Nick, and Warrick to help Archie look through all of the hours of video. It would take less time if they were all working together on the job. The Chimera Killer had to be caught—and soon.

"You're welcome; now tell me why you called me in here," Grissom said, his patience warring.

Sara lined up three photographs on the table, each a frozen picture from the post office's front room. "Dorothea Friar, sending out letters," she said, pointing to the first photo. "Roxanne Theseus—and guess who that is standing behind her? Hector Ibáñez." Sara ran her finger over the second picture. "And then we found Ibáñez again, on another day, but this time he was picking up his mail, rather than sending it out."

"Now, it was difficult, due to the grainy images that the post office's security camera turned out, but I was able to zoom in on the packages and letters that these people were sending," said Archie, as he pulled up a window on his computer. "Roxanne was sending a package that was addressed to Carl and Belinda Theseus, her parents. I could not get a good picture of the entire return address to see whose name was on it. However, I did get one visible letter—thank Roxanne for her large writing—and it was a Z.

"So we know that someone could have seen the package and Zoë's name," Catherine offered. "That might have been how the Chimera knew that her name was based off Greek mythology."

Archie put the screen away and pulled up another one. "Ibáñez was sending a letter to one of his friends—Guillermo Rodriguez—but the outside of it was all in Spanish. He might have been sending it to Mexico or somewhere like that." Archie shrugged. "I don't know. I cannot read Spanish."

"You could have asked me to translate it," Nick commented from the back of the room.

Archie held up his hands in defense. "We do not need to know exactly where he was sending the letter…. Anyway, now we have Dorothea Friar. She was sending letters to different people."

"We matched some of the names with names on the list of people that regularly visit _Echo_," Warrick added. "She must have been sending out information on what was happening with the center or upcoming events."

"That leaves us with the finally photo, the one of Ibáñez receiving his mail," continued Archie. He must have a P.O. Box if he is picking it up at the post office. The letters were from the high school he works at. Nothing exciting."

Grissom sat down in one of the chairs. "All of our victims went to the same post office, except for Elliot Friar, but his wife was there. The weapon used to kill the Friars was a letter opener. From the surveillance video we retrieved from _Echo_, we saw that the Chimera had his weapon with him; he did not grab it from the front desk of the center. Jim gave me the list of employees at that post office. Many modern names come from Greek names or from mythology, but one name in particular stood out."

He put the list of names on the table, with one name highlighted: Jason Hyperion.

"Jason is a common name, but it has Greek ties. Jason was thrown out of Ioclos when his uncle Pelias overthrew his father and became king. With the Argonauts, Jason went on a search for the Golden Fleece. If he returned to Ioclos, alive, with the fleece, then we would receive the throne. Pelias never thought that he would return from the dangerous journey. Along the way, he married a sorceress, Medea, who later betrayed him when he fell in love with another woman. Jason returned home, with the Golden Fleece, and claimed what was rightfully his. Hyperion was a titan that was in charge of the sun and light. The sun god Helios, and moon goddess Selene, and the dawn goddess Eos were his children with his wife Theia, the titan of sight, glittering, and glory."

"Someone did their research," said Catherine when he was done.

Right then, Brass walked through the door. "And someone else just got a search warrant."

***

Peter McConnell did not look happy to see them. "Oh, it's you again," he said through gritted teeth. "What is it now? Did you find anything _interesting_ on the security tape?" McConnell scoffed.

"Actually, we did," Brass replied, holding up the new warrant. "We need everyone to get out of the post office, at least until we are done."

McConnell grabbed the piece of paper and read furiously. "Done with what?"

"Searching for a letter opener."

"Are you kidding me?" McConnell said. "This is a post office—do you know how many of those things we keep here?! And why would you possibly be looking for that…?"

However, Brass and Grissom were already walking down the hall. People stopped what they were doing to gaze at Grissom, who was garbed in his work cloths, the letters _CSI_ sprawled across the back. They stopped to ask a woman which desk belonged to Mr. Hyperion and she pointed them in the right direction.

Three small desks were lined against one wall. A man in his thirties sat at the desk on the very right. His forehead was high, framed by thick brown hair, and his mouth was thin, stretched across his face as if it wanted to fill up the entire length of his head. When Grissom and Brass walked up, his head snapped forward, and his dark eyes were on them in a second.

"Yes?" he asked, his voice gruff.

"Are you Mr. Jason Hyperion?" Grissom asked politely as he set his crime scene briefcase on the ground.

The man nodded slowly, as if he was unsure to tell him.

"Then we have to search your desk," said Grissom. He was slipping on a pair of rubber gloves. "You have to move, please. Your boss, Mr. McConnell, has our search warrant, if you want to look at it."

Jason Hyperion stepped away from his desk warily and stood against the wall, never taking his eyes off Grissom. McConnell came into the room, the warrant in hand, and gave it to Brass, who handed it to Jason. The young man did not flip through the pages, as McConnell had, but rather stood motionless, as stoic as ever.

"Is this your letter opener, Jason?" Grissom asked, motioning to the one sitting in the pencil holder.

Jason nodded a reply.

Grissom lightly took the letter opener by the very end of the handle. On the base of the handle right where it met the blade, was a dried, bloody thumbprint. He held the gold object up for Brass to see. Then, pulling a Q-tip out from his case, Grissom swabbed the blade, and sprayed the Q-tip.

"It is positive for blood," Grissom said, holding the Q-tip up.

"I cut myself on it," said Jason, but his voice started to waver. "That is how the fingerprint got on there…."

"Of course you did," Grissom replied, slipping the letter opener in a bag.

Brass walked up to Jason when he was not paying attention. "Jason Hyperion, you are coming with us."

***

Jason Hyperion sat across the interrogation table form Grissom and Brass. Grissom knew that the rest of the team was watching through the one-way window. Jason had his hands in his lap; he was staring at the tabletop, refusing to look at them. His dark hair hung over his face, concealing it from view.

"We tested the blood that was found on the letter opener," Grissom started, ignoring the fact the Jason was not paying attention. "There was blood from two different people—neither of them was from you. It was the blood of Dorothea and Elliot Friar." Grissom placed a picture of the cadavers on the table, the same picture that he had shown Hector Ibáñez.

The man turned his face up toward the other men. His expression was blank, but his dark eyes bore holes into Grissom.

"You killed Roxanne Theseus, too, and you attempted to kill her daughter Zoë. You were also going to kill Hector Ibáñez. We found the statues, Jason. We know that you are the Chimera Killer."

"The Chimera Killer, eh?" Jason said in his deep, haunting voice. "I never thought of that. I must say that I like the sound of it."

"You are confessing to the crimes?" Brass asked warily.

A small smirk, barely detectable, spread across Jason's face. "Yes, I am. You caught me; there is no reason to say that I am not the killer. I killed those people. I am the Chimera Killer." A glint of insanity flashed in his eyes as he said it.

"But why?" Grissom asked. "Why did you do it?"

Jason moved his head to the side. He was becoming more animated now. "I will tell you everything," he hissed. "Every night when I was a kid, my father would tell my sister, Callie, and I stories. Each story was about Greek mythology and each night, the stories kept getting scarier and scarier. The one that he told us the most was the story about the Chimera. My father would sit on the edge of my bed, with my sister and I huddling together, and he would tell it as if it were the most magnificent thing in the world. He loved it when we got scared…. My father was obsessed with Greek mythology. He said that it was because his last name was Hyperion. The fact that he named a woman named Penelope just magnified the affect."

_Penelope_, Grissom thought, _was the wife of Odysseus_.

"He named me Jason because of his love for the Greeks," the killer continued. "Callie was my sister's nickname; her real name was Calliope, one of the Greek muses…. I was eight-years-old when it happened. My father snapped. I did not see it, but Callie did. My father became infuriated with my mother. He grabbed one of the kitchen knives and stabbed her, repeatedly until she mutilated. Callie ran upstairs to my room. 'The Chimera is coming,' she whispered, using the name we used for our father when he was not there. She threw herself into the closet and I rushed under the bed. Our father came in, looking for us. He went straight to the closet, and pulled Callie out. I watched as he killed her, stabbing her just as he did with our mother. My poor sister, I wanted to help her, but I couldn't. When he was done, he searched the room quickly; I think he was drunk, because he did not find me."

Jason was practically whispering now. "I stayed under the bed until morning, when a neighbor found me. My father was gone. The police did find him later—he was arrested and put in jail for twenty-five years. He got out earlier this year. My father showed up at my doorstep, trying to apologize. Anyone could tell that he was not sorry. The only reason why he came was to ask for money and a place to stay—he was homeless and broke. We were standing in the kitchen, arguing about what he had done. I wanted him gone—no, I wanted him _dead_. I grabbed one of the knives on the table and stabbed him, over and over again." Jason slammed his fist on the table with each 'over.' "He died the same way my mother did…. I went out into the desert and I buried him. No one was going to miss him. When I got home, I realized that I wanted more. My hand was shaking as I washed the knife, not because of fear at what I had just done, but for the desire to do more.

"I waited the longest time until I killed again. I put the desire in the back of my head, until one day when I was working the front desk at the post office. A woman came in with a box. The name on it said Zoë Theseus. I tried to send the woman away—I told her that there was something wrong with the package, but finally, I had to take it. The name was enough to drive me crazy. Then, the man behind her, his first name was Hector. Later in the week, a woman came in. When I was sorting the mail, I found that she ran a center called _Echo_, which was in Grey Sister Plaza. I had other mail that was for the shop next-door, a flower shop. Hector Ibáñez came in again, too. I had discovered that he was directing the _Iliad_. It was becoming too much to avoid. I couldn't hold it in any longer. I went to the Theseus home using the return address on the box. The woman opened the door and I pushed my way through. I killed her; I killed Zoë. I had found the Chimera statue weeks before and I brought it along with the clues to my next killing. I did not wait very long before I killed the woman and man on my and their lunch breaks. I used the letter opener that time. I left the knife at the Theseus' place. I freaked out and stuffed it in the dishwasher. I was planning to kill Hector and the opening of the play, I even bought a ticket, but you caught me before I could do it."

Grissom leaned across the table. Obviously Jason had not heard what he had said earlier. "You did not kill Zoë, Jason. Zoë was young girl that you left alive. Her mother was Roxanne Theseus. That was the woman you killed."

His face turned white. "Really?" he whispered.

"Why did you leave Zoë alive?" Grissom asked.

"Because," Jason said, his voice breaking, "she reminded me of Callie."

Brass cleared his throat, breaking the silence that had filled the room. "You own Giorgio Armani Men's Perforated Leather Oxfords shoes, don't you, Mr. Hyperion."

Jason tipped his head to the side. "Why, yes, I do. Only one pair though. I splurged one day."

"You left a shoe impression on Roxanne's body," Grissom explained.

"Is the girl okay?" Jason said suddenly, turning back to the previous subject. "She was not hurt too bad, right?"

"She is fine, physically at least. It will take her some time to get over the death of her mother," Grissom said coldly.

Jason leaned back in his chair, relief spreading across his face. "That is good. That is very good."

For some reason, Grissom believed that Jason was picturing Callie in Zoë's place.

Brass and Grissom left the interrogation room and joined the rest of the team. They were sitting around the one-way mirror; however, no one was watching Jason Hyperion. Catherine, Sara, Nick, and Warrick were staring at Grissom, waiting for him to say something. Grissom took his time walking over to the empty chair that they had saved for him. When he sat down, he rubbed his eyes, tiredly.

"We finally got the Chimera," he said.

"All of that time, all of that work," said Catherine, shaking her head, "and it comes down to one moment."

"I'll tell you one thing, I will never look at Greek mythology the same way again," commented Nick. "All I will ever think of is Zoë and Jason's sister Callie."

Sara put her head in her hands. "To think that if he had been raised differently, then none of this would have happened."

"You should not think about what could have happened," said Grissom. "Our job is not about that. We find out what happened and why. You will tear yourself apart thinking about it."

"It is so hard not to think about it, though," Sara told him, but she said it gently.

"I know." Grissom slipped his glasses off his face and held them in his hands. He turned his head to look at Jason through the window. "We may have slain the Chimera, but there are more to come. We just have to keep moving on. There are more killers to catch and more lives to save. If you become emotional about every single one, then you will never be able to live your own life the way you should…. However, you all did a good job. Go home and get some rest. You deserve it."

"Until the next one comes," Warrick added, grinning.

Grissom returned the smile, but then his face became serious. "Until the next one."

_The End_


End file.
